


don't leave me hanging

by cupcakeb



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, F/M, I just really love boarding school AUs yall, Not Canon Compliant, this is a murder free zone no one is dying on my watch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26053390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupcakeb/pseuds/cupcakeb
Summary: Rebeka hasn’t cried in three years.Her mother says something about boarding school and Galicia and it being better this way and Rebe starts sobbing before Sandra even finishes her cigarette.OR: Las Encinas is a prestigious boarding school. Rebeka is... not excited to go.(ON HIATUS while I try to get my shit together...)
Relationships: Rebeca "Rebe" de Bormujo Ávalos/Valerio Montesinos Hendrich, a bunch of random background mentions of relationships, alllll the friendships
Comments: 65
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All of my favorite movies/tv shows/books growing up took place at boarding schools and I'm totally still bitter about not getting to go. This is a Rebeka-centric story that will span several chapters; please don't ask me how many I've got planned because you don't want to know.

She hates her mother. Maybe she shouldn’t say that, maybe she shouldn’t even think it considering she only has one parent left, but she really fucking hates her sometimes.  
  
After years of small-time neighborhood drug pushing, of inciting mild gang violence to turn a profit, Sandra decides to join the big leagues. She’s a savvy businesswoman and well connected, so of course it works out for her.  
  
“I’m gonna make enough for us to live like fucking royalty,” she tells her one night, when Rebe is thirteen, while counting a stack of bills at their dimly lit kitchen counter. “And then we’ll get out of here and we’ll do whatever the hell we want together, alright baby?”  
  
Rebeka refrains from telling her mother she doesn’t need anything more than what she’s got right now — a roof over her head, a great group of friends in their shitty little neighborhood, some food on the table. It’s best not to argue with Sandra when she gets like this. The lecture on relentlessly going after things she doesn’t want in the first place wouldn’t be worth it.  
  
Her father died when she was twelve, and it was awful and shitty and almost killed her, basically. It was almost enough to make her just walk up the thirteen flights of stairs to the top of their building and jump. The only reason she didn’t go through with it is her mother — who she’s called by her first name for as long as she can remember — because if she did it, if she let herself be selfish and made it all go away, who would take care of Sandra then? No one. She would be left with no one. Rebe doesn’t want to leave this world with that sort of burden on her shoulders, so she doesn’t leave it at all.  
  
Apparently being a grieving widow does wonders for drug sales, if the number of times Rebe catches her mother hiding money in random places around their apartment over the next year is any indication to go by.  
  
She doesn’t know what exactly Sandra is selling, and she’s never bothered to ask. It’s probably better for her not to know.  
  
But business picks up. More and more sketchy men spend evenings smoking cigarettes on their living room couch, leer at Rebeka when she comes home from school or basketball practice or just out of her room to get something to eat. It freaks her out, because she’s barely even a teenager at first, and still freaks her out two years later, when she’s fifteen and has to slap one of the stupid cronies her mother brought home to get away from him when he gets a little handsy. She may not look fifteen, but she definitely doesn’t look of age, either, so she slaps him hard, calls him a fucking pedophile, and locks herself in her room.  
  
That’s when she starts getting into boxing. Being able to defend herself feels important.

Having a tough demeanor to hide behind sort of becomes second nature after that; there’s no other way to get away from the type of men her mother calls her business partners otherwise. It sucks, but it keeps a roof over their heads, keeps a decent amount of cash in her pockets to spend on food, or going to a movie with Samuel, and it’s what her mother wants so there’s really no point in entertaining the possibility of this ever just being over.  
  
Anyway, point being: All in all, she likes the life she’s built for herself here. The life they’ve built for themselves. It’s sort of like Gilmore Girls meets Breaking Bad in that she loves her mother and they’re close, but she also doesn’t really know who Sandra is anymore, now that she wears designer dresses that somehow still look tacky and buys Rebe solid gold jewelry. Sometimes this hint of cruelty will flicker across her face when she’s talking to Rebe, and every single time it’ll make her wonder if she should be scared of her own mother.  
  
Upgrading her wardrobe is pretty fun — what 15 year old wouldn’t enjoy getting to buy whatever the hell they want — and so is school. She doesn’t care much about class, but she loves her friends, and she loves getting to hang out with them pretty much all the time. They all live in the same neighborhood, and it’s not like Sandra really cares about whether she’s home most of the time.  
  
Life is as good as it’s ever been. Life is absolutely fine until she’s sixteen, and it’s the beginning of August, two weeks before she’s supposed to go back to school.  
  
That’s when she comes home, sees Sandra sitting at the kitchen table, and instantly feels something is… off. She knows the look on her mother’s face well — well enough to know she’s up to something.  
  
“Sweetie, sit down,” Sandra commands more than says, blowing out a cloud of cigarette smoke.  
  
Rebeka hasn’t cried in three years.  
  
Her mother says something about boarding school and Galicia and it being better this way and Rebe starts sobbing before Sandra even finishes her cigarette. 

She really fucking hates her sometimes.  
  
**  
  
“You better call me every week.”  
  
Samuel is handling this whole thing a lot better than she is, but that may be the calimocho talking. They’re perched on the little concrete wall surrounding the garbage pick up area next to their building, their staple hangout spot since they were old enough to climb it. It’s better than hanging out on the playground, where the sketchy kids spend their nights.  
  
Leaving him sucks the most, probably.  
  
She’s known Samuel for basically all of her life, has lived next door to him in this shoddy apartment block since her parents moved here when she was two, when his mother would work eighteen-hour shifts at the hospital and Sandra would invite Nano and Samu over for dinner, give them baths and tuck them into bed together. For all intents and purposes, he’s like a little brother to her. 

(She’s a month older than him — something she’s never, ever gonna stop bringing up.)  
  
“I’ll call you if I make it one week before I fucking slit my wrists, alright?”  
  
She’s leaving for Galicia tomorrow. Of course a boarding school in the Madrid area wasn’t far away enough for her mother. It fucking sucks.  
  
Sandra wanted to throw her a goodbye party, but Rebe is still too pissed to accept that sort of thing — she doesn’t care about her mother suddenly growing a fucking conscience and realizing that she doesn’t want her only daughter mixed up in her sketchy fucking drug business. Maybe she should’ve thought of that before she turned their living room into a market place for gangsters. If Rebe has managed to get away from that unscathed so far, it makes no sense to send her away _now._

Samu looks a little sad, his brow furrowed in that puppy dog formation he likes, and she rolls her eyes and nudges his shoulder with her own. 

“I’ll be back for Christmas, you won’t even have time to miss my stupid jokes,” she suggests, and kind of resents herself for instantly trying to cheer him up when she’s the one being forced to move across the country. She hates how she always prioritizes other people’s feelings. 

“You’ll forget all about me now that you’re gonna befriend all these rich kids,” Samu laughs. “You won’t even need me and Nano anymore.”

“Where is Nano anyway? I wanted to take one last look at those abs,” she grins when Samu grunts in response. It’s so easy to rile him up. “You know, take some pictures to look at when I’m feeling... lonely.” 

There’s the reaction she was looking for — he squeezes his eyes shut and a visible shudder runs through his body, like he’s actually physically cringing. He’s such a dumbass. She’s gonna miss him so much. 

“Please stop drooling over my twenty-year-old brother.” 

It’s probably for the best that Samu still doesn’t know she occasionally hooks up with Nano. It's not like, a thing or anything, but it happens sometimes and it's always unplanned and never a bad use of her time.

“I’ll stop drooling when he stops being such a hot piece of ass, sweet cheeks.”

Their laughter rings in the courtyard of their building, and Rebe doesn’t allow herself to start missing this already. 

She’ll save that for another day. 

**

Las Encinas looks even more ridiculous in person than it does in the brochures. Someone at the school office — there’s no orientation desk, because apparently there aren’t enough new students to warrant it — hands her a key card and a copy of the school handbook and tells her someone will meet her at her dorm in a few minutes to give her a tour. Great. 

She makes the driver Sandra hired carry her shit inside, then looks around the room and sort of falls back on her bed with a sigh. At least she doesn’t have a roommate — that would’ve been worse. 

The school is co-ed (thank god) but dorms are apparently not — probably in an effort to pretend like these rich teens aren’t all totally hooking up. So they’re gendered, and each of the three floors is for a different age group, to help with class bonding, or some shit like that. That’s what the redhead who shows her around tells her anyway. She’s been assigned as her _buddy_ , but five minutes into the tour Rebe already knows there’s no way they’re gonna be friends. 

“No guests in the building after ten, and obviously no boys in your room, ever,” Marina says, as if she’s reading from a script. For some reason Rebe finds the idea of rattling the girl amusing. 

“Who says I’m into boys?” 

From the designer jeans the girl is wearing, clearly made to look distressed to hide the fact that they cost more than most people’s rent, she can tell the other girl is bothered by the remark, like she doesn’t appreciate the implied homophobia. Good. She looks like she needs to be taken down a peg. 

“So what do you do if you want to...” Rebe waves her hands around and hopes she won’t have to say the words. 

Marina laughs. “I take it you’re new to the concept of boarding school.”

They’re walking across the plaza, towards the main building. 

“Wow, how did you know,” she asks sarcastically, then looks down at her outfit of choice. Yeah, okay, maybe the ripped H&M jeans and her frayed, sleeveless crop top don’t exactly scream prep school material. It’s not that she can’t afford nicer clothes, she just really doesn’t see the point of that.

And campus isn’t so bad. It looks really, really cool, actually. Elitist and ridiculous but at least the absurd amount of money Sandra is paying for tuition is clearly being spent on _something_.

Marina ignores her remark and goes back to her little welcome script, explains something about the school dress code and getting her in for a blazer fitting and— no. 

“What’s the point of having uniforms? Not like everyone at this school isn’t equally loaded,” she scoffs, and the indignant look on Marina’s face is hilarious. It’s apparent the girl is the kind of rich bitch who pretends to _totally_ care about the struggles of the working class. 

“It’s not a uniform,” she insists. “Just a blazer. It’s about what it represents.” 

Then she launches into a whole tirade about the different blazer colors signifying different classes and all of it sounds like absolute bullshit to Rebeka. It’s all just excuses for being elitist dicks and feeling good about it. Whether these stupid snobs wear a blazer with red or yellow embroidering doesn’t change a thing. (She’s glad upperclassmen get to wear the red school crest, though — yellow is pretty difficult to pull off.)

When she rolls her eyes, Marina stops walking and puts a hand on her shoulder. 

“We’re like family around here — you might want to try and fit in a little if you don’t want to be utterly miserable.” 

There’s no reason not to push her buttons a little further. Marina has one too many piercings in her ear to not be a stereotypical faux rebel. 

“Like you care about fitting in.”

That seems to do the trick, because Marina scoffs at her. 

“You’re not special,” the girl finally says, short. “We’ve seen dozens of girls like you come and go. Acting like going to this school doesn’t make you as privileged as the rest of us isn’t gonna make your life here any easier.”

She appreciates the brief moment of sincerity beneath the carefully put together facade of not giving a fuck, so she laughs and nods at Marina. “Whatever.” 

They’re standing in front of a large display of sports trophies and team pictures in the main lobby. There’s a hot guy holding a tennis racket and a trophy in one of them. “Damn, is this one single?” 

Marina rolls her eyes. “Maybe wait a few days until you start trying to sleep with everyone in our class — you don’t want that sort of reputation.”

She’ll let the slut-shaming slide for now. 

“So he’s in our class? Score.” 

When Marina reluctantly lets out a laugh, Rebeka grins. They’re not gonna be friends, but it’s nice to have someone acknowledge her superior sense of humor anyway. 

**  
  
The tour is followed by a meeting with her advisor to figure out her class schedule, and it takes Rebeka about five minutes of talking to the woman to understand why private school kids have better opportunities in life.  
  
She’s never in her life had a teacher actually care this much, and this chick isn’t even a teacher.It’s a little unnerving, the way she actually knows what she’s talking about, like she bothered to look at Rebeka’s academic records.  
  
“You’ll have to take three subjects at a higher level to satisfy IB diploma criteria,” Rebe nods, trying to stay calm even though all of this sounds daunting. “From your transcripts, I gather math is not going to be one of those three.”  
  
Yeah, math fucking sucks. She used to be good at it, but then they introduced all that formula bullshit and nothing made sense anymore. “I’ll literally pay you if you find a way to get me out of taking math at all.”  
  
Her advisor smiles at her good-naturedly, then moves on from the joke. “It’s a good thing you got here in time — you would have struggled to keep up with IB prep without the full two years of instruction.”  
  
They spend a few minutes discussing different mandatory classes and electives, then move on to extracurriculars.  
  
“What sort of sports are you interested in?”  
  
“I used to box,” Rebe grins. “So anything where I can hit people — or inanimate objects, I’m not picky — sounds good.”  
  
“I’m afraid we don’t condone violence based sports at this school.”  
  
Rebe thinks she’s joking, so of course she laughs. That’s funny.  
  
It’s probably the awkwardness of realizing the woman was serious that makes her agree to join the soccer team. There’s no other explanation for it. She hates team sports.  
  
Swim class is apparently mandatory and she groans when she’s sent to the atelier (the fact that that’s what they’re calling it at all? Gross...) for a general fitting. 

She leaves thirty minutes later carrying a whole stack of clothes — anything from swimsuits featuring the school crest to soccer warm ups, two blazers and a few hoodies. It’s absurd, honestly. As if living at school wasn’t bad enough, the constant need to flaunt school spirit is really over the top. 

Retreating to her room, she busies herself with unpacking. She doesn’t want to be that girl — the one who moves away and instantly becomes a nostalgic wreck — but she still puts up a couple of pictures of her with various people — Samu, Nano, Sandra — above her desk and texts Samu a selfie posing with them. He asks about the dress code and she replies with pictures of all the stupid clothes on the bed, then turns off her phone and sighs. 

This room doesn’t feel like home at all. 

There’s no cigarette smoke, first of all, or loud neighbors banging on the surrounding walls.  
  
Looking out the window, she sighs. Even the sky looks more blue here, somehow. 

The quiet will take some getting used to. 

** 

The quiet _would_ take some getting used to, if it wasn’t short-lived. It’s move in weekend, and anyone with half a brain probably figured arriving on Saturday made more sense, so the entire afternoon is filled with more of her new classmates arriving. Every couple of minutes she hears high pitched squealing, then eager talk of how these girls spent their summers, and Rebeka really, really cannot believe this is her life now.  
  
She’s never even really had a female friend before and now she’s gonna live door to door with all these annoying girls her age. All that estrogen is gonna make her want to blow her brains out. 

There’s a knock on her door around five, and no one actually comes in when she tells them to. Instead she hears an adult male voice say, “Common room in 15,” like that’s supposed to mean something to her.  
  
Maybe this will be the worst part of being here — all the forced socializing.  
  
They have a floor meeting in the common room. At least that’s what the older man who introduces himself as Martin, one of the residential boarding assistants — aka a chaperone to keep all the hormonal teenagers in check — calls it. There’s an inspired rehash of the basic house rules that everyone but her must have heard a million times before, if the way all the girls roll their eyes at them is anything to go by. 

Rebeka is just sort of trying to not be noticed, which is difficult when you’re surrounded by people who have clearly known each other for years. She’s the odd one out. Maybe she should’ve changed out of her sweats for this stupid meeting, but she figures if she lives here now that means she doesn’t have to bother dressing up all the time. The common room is basically her living room, right?

“Now, Lu has kindly taken responsibility for hosting a little mixer for everyone tonight,” Martin says, and nods at a brunette (snobby looking bitch) sitting in the middle of the room. The girl’s smile is so fake, Rebe instantly wants to find out more about her. What kind of name is Lu, anyway? Was boo taken? “I trust you all know to be on your best behavior. We don’t want to start doling out warnings on the first night of the year, alright, ladies?”  
  
(If he refers to her as a lady one more time, Rebeka might do something stupid like tell him it’s a redundant, sexist phrase to use.)

The brunette seems to have something to say about that because she raises her hand all prim and proper and clearly impatient, then addresses poor Martin, who looks a little scared. 

“We’ve invited some of the boys, Martin, just so you’re aware — we wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea. But bonding shouldn’t be a gendered experience, especially when we will all be working so closely together all year, right?” 

Rebe kind of admires her for having the guts to insinuate she didn’t clearly want this little get together to be co-ed for the sole purpose of ‘mingling’ with the opposite sex. Bonding is one way of saying you want to get laid. 

Martin nods, like he appreciates her input. What a fucking dumbass. Men are so easily played and placated. 

He looks around the room and when his eyes linger on Rebeka, she braces herself for whatever horrible intro is to come. 

“Rebeka,” he says, motioning to her. The fact that he knows her name at all, even though they’ve never met, weirds her out. She raises a hand for an awkward salute and looks anywhere but at the dozen or so girls staring at her. “You’re new here, so you might not know this yet. We operate a TTIS model. Total trust in students.” 

That’s the dumbest thing Rebe has ever heard, but she obviously doesn’t say anything. The brunette with the stupidly short name smirks at her and nods a little, which confirms her initial suspicion — this is clearly the sort of institution that will go on about honor codes and rules and school values and then turn a blind eye to debauchery under the guise of freedom of expression. Binge drinking is all about letting students discover their inner creative, after all.  
  
When she realizes everyone is still staring at her, she figures she should probably acknowledge this somehow. 

“No trust issues, noted,” she shrugs, trying hard to come off casual and unbothered by all the unwelcome attention. 

Martin finishes up his little hosting gig and waves her over. Ugh. 

“Rebeka, I’d like to introduce you to Lucrecia,” and wow, who would’ve thought that her nickname is somehow already the improved version of her actual name? The brunette gives her a smile so fake, it’s hard not to feel the urge to punch her. “Lu is class president and your resident prefect — if you have any questions at all, I’m sure she’d love to help, right?” 

Lu nods eagerly. “Welcome to Las Encinas,” she says enthusiastically, then puts an arm around her to steer her away from Martin’s watchful eyes. “You might want to change before dinner, darling, we don’t really condone people dressing like trailer trash.” 

Rebe isn’t easily offended — she grew up around boys. “Yeah? What are you gonna do, take five points away from Slytherin for improper usage of leisurewear?” 

She’s pretty sure the way Lu’s eyebrows shoot up just a bit mean she’s at least a little impressed with that comeback. “At least change for the party,” she relents, giving her a quick once over. “If anyone wants to see you naked, they’ll have to work for it — no more crop tops, alright?” 

It’s pretty amusing to think that this obnoxious queen bee routine might work on anyone. The whole thing is seriously uninspired. 

“Who says I’m coming to the party?” 

“Well, let’s see — it’s a Saturday night, you have zero friends here and you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, on a campus you can’t leave,” Lu pauses for emphasis and fixes her with a smirk. “I’ll see you at 7:00.” 

Seven seems incredibly early to do any partying, but she supposes that’s something she’ll have to get used to, considering their 10:00 curfew. 

This is fun, anyway. It’s nice to have someone to take her frustrations out on. 

“Wow, are you saying we won’t see each other at dinner? I thought we were all family here at Las Encinas,” she reaches out a hand and touches Lu’s shoulder, watching in delight as the brunette tries hard not to brush it off. “That’s cold, Lucrecia.” 

If looks could kill, Rebe is pretty sure she would have been put out of her misery by this one.

Lu’s smile is tense and impatient. “If you call me that again, I promise I’ll make sure to get you uninvited from any future _family_ activities.”  
  
It’s an empty, uninspired threat. She’ll take her chances.

“Sounds great, Lucrecia,” Rebe laughs. Turning to leave, she spares the girl one last glance. “I’ll be there.”

Maybe boarding school won’t be so bad after all. 

Rebeka has always liked a challenge.  
  
**

Dinner is... fine. She expected a tad more variety considering the hefty price tag of tuition, but there’s a fancy salad bar, and one of the people working in the kitchen apologizes to her because there’s no vegan option tonight which? Should she be offended that this woman thinks she _looks_ like a vegan? (She orders a steak, just in case.) 

When she looks around the dining hall, she reluctantly goes over to sit next to Marina, who’s waving encouragingly. There are two boys sitting with her, and they both look like a stock photo search result for the term _prep school boy —_ one of them is in a Ralph Lauren Polo and the other is rocking a Lacoste shirt. She recognizes the one on the left as the cute tennis player from the picture in the lobby and grins at him. 

This isn’t ideal, but it’s not like she has any other options. She doesn’t fully understand the who’s who of Las Encinas’ social hierarchy yet, but not eating alone sounds like a solid way to avoid being a total social outcast from the start. 

When none of them say anything, Rebeka raises her eyebrows exasperatedly. “Nice to meet you too, jeez,” the boys are both staring at her, and she figures she gets to stare back. Quid pro quo. 

The kid on the left is kind of ridiculously gorgeous, with light brown curls and the eyes to match. He’s giving her a look as if he’s intrigued by her presence, which she’s definitely okay with. Cute boys are allowed to stare at her any time, if that ups her chances of getting to see them naked. 

The boy to his right has even lighter hair, blue eyes that sort of remind her of Marina’s and skin that’s too pale to have survived much time in the sun — ah yes, the plight of an upper class upbringing. He’s got a cocky grin on his face and, unlike the other kid, gives off some pretty shitty vibes; he’s the one whose stare she’d rather not be subjected to. 

Marina is watching their childish staring contest in amusement, if the expression on her face is anything to go by. 

“Rebeka,” she gestures at Rebe, then points at the boys across from them. “This is Ander, and the idiot on his right is my lovely brother, Guzmán.” 

The cute guy — Ander — gives her a lopsided smile and nods in acknowledgment. Cool, not a big talker then; she doesn’t need her eye candy to talk anyway. Marina’s brother is still sporting that obnoxious grin, a slightly judgmental look on his face. 

His eyes linger on the expanse of her stomach bared by her crop top. “Did they not give you the leaflet on dress code and etiquette?” 

“Wow, you really don’t waste time when it comes to the whole entitled, holier than thou judgmental creep act!”  
  
Rebe pops a bite of her steak in her mouth and chews it slowly, not breaking eye contact with the douchebag across from her. When he rolls his eyes and scoffs, she smirks. Winning these small disagreements is gonna serve her well in terms of establishing herself in the pecking order at this school. 

Marina laughs next to her and when Rebeka looks over at her, the girl looks impressed. Maybe they’ll get along after all. The redhead grins at Guzmán as she asks, “Speaking of judgment, where’s your girlfriend?” 

He seems annoyed by that question. “She’s not my girlfriend, Marina, for fuck’s sake.”

Ander is sort of just quietly watching the exchange, a small smile playing on his lips. Rebe respects that; it must be nice to be calm enough to watch these things unfold. (She wouldn’t know.)

“That’s not what she told me,” Marina says, poking at her salad with her fork. “And that’s not what mom thinks, either.” 

“What did you expect me to tell her, huh? _‘Hi mom, this is the girl I’m fucking at school, thanks for letting her hang out at the lake house’_ doesn’t exactly scream responsible son.” 

It’s Ander’s turn to laugh, then. “Lu must’ve loved that,” he says, and when Guzmán gives him a clueless look in response, he continues, “Getting to play girlfriend all summer.” 

Of course. Rebeka should’ve expected this idiot to be dating the bitchy girl from her earlier common room encounter. A match made in heaven — the two biggest assholes she’s met here so far _would_ be the kind to be involved in some contrived unholy matrimony set up. 

“What about you two,” Rebeka asks, looking back and forth between Marina and Ander. “Single? Taken? In love with a hot teacher I have yet to meet?” 

Both of them laugh, and it’s worth it for the slightly annoyed look on Guzman’s face alone. 

“Ander’s too busy with tennis to bother with girls,” Guzmán teases, and it’s apparently enough of a topic of contention for Ander to look uncomfortable and roll his eyes at the other boy. “And he’d never go for you anyway. His taste is too refined.” 

“Hey, let the boy speak for himself,” Rebe grins. It gets a little smile out of Ander, who apparently has shitty taste in friends if the idiot next to him is one of them. 

It’s not a completely silent dinner and she’s not sure if she likes two of the three people she spends it with, but that’s still better than nothing. 

On her way out, she spots her new brunette object of bickering affection sitting at a table near the back, speaking to a really fucking hot blonde chick in a hushed voice. When Lu notices her glance at them, she stops talking and gestures wildly to the blonde, whose eyes scan over Rebe like she’s trying to make up her mind about her. When she’s done, she shrugs a little and laughs, and Rebeka can tell from afar that Lu is annoyed at her friend’s lackluster reaction — like she expected her to give her a menacing, judgmental look too. 

Rebeka is pretty sure pissing Lu off is gonna be her new favorite pastime. 

**

If this is what the kids around here call a party, Rebe is going to have to find new hobbies outside of drinking. This is fucking lame. Maybe she shouldn’t have gone over to the common room at seven on the dot, maybe she should’ve had a few shots of _something_ in her room before making her way over, but she’d sort of assumed you don’t have to pregame for a party that’s literally being held in your living room of sorts. 

There’s people sitting clustered around the room, all off in their own little cliques, literally ignoring the other people around them. 

If feeling excluded and uncomfortable was a sport, Rebe would probably do pretty well right about now. Olympic gold in involuntary solitude is hers for the taking. There’s no point dwelling on the slight nausea bubbling up inside of her at being so far out of her comfort zone — she’s here now, and nothing’s gonna change that — so she walks over to the table of refreshments and sort of laughs to herself when she sees the excessive choice of spirits and mixers. 

Grabbing a red solo cup, she pours herself a generous shot of rum and tops it up with coke. The ratio is off, and she winces a little when the taste hits her tongue. More people are arriving, which hopefully means this will get less weird soon. 

There’s a few boys around too now but no one particularly catches Rebeka’s eye. Lu is leaning against the piano in the corner of the room, holding onto Guzmán’s hand, which he seems a little too okay with considering his insistence at her not being his girlfriend earlier, but that’s none of her business so Rebeka looks away and busies herself with trying to finish her drink as soon as possible. Liquid courage is great. 

There are large doors leading out onto a balcony on one side of the room, and Rebeka finds herself walking over towards them. Some alone time paired with fresh air sounds tempting. 

The balcony is comically large, which she should’ve expected, really. Las Encinas wouldn’t know subtlety if it hit them in the face. She’s alone outside, safe for a random bird perched on the balcony railing, so she sits down on one of the benches and lets out a sigh. 

She’s got a great view of the main school building from here, so she gets out her phone and snaps a picture of it, sending it to Samu captionless. Then she switches on the front camera, holds up her red solo cup and takes a selfie. She captures it ‘alcoholism 1 - private schooling 0’ and hits send before she can second-guess herself for the lame line. 

Behind her, she hears someone giggle. It’s a male giggle, and before she knows it there’s a guy sitting next to her. She glances at him, trying for subtle. Why is everyone at this school so fucking attractive? Is that a rich people thing too? 

He’s got black hair that falls in loose curls around his face and the bone structure of an Athenian god. That’s not an exaggeration; it’s an observation. 

“Drinking alone?”

She nods her head and raises her cup in a toast. He mirrors her and grins a little when he raises his cup to his lips. She likes that grin. 

They sit there for a moment, sort of just wallowing in the silence, letting it settle around them. She’s a big fan of people who value silence as much as she does. Then, he scoots a little closer to her and stretches his arm out behind her on the backrest of the bench, twirls some of her hair around his finger. 

He smells really, really good and she’s not sure that’s something she wanted to know. 

“You’re new,” he observes, and she nods. “You seem lonely.” 

She nods again. 

“You’re also really hot...” he trails off, and she laughs. Such a terrible line, but he sounded sincere which she’ll give him credit for. 

“Thanks for stating the obvious, Curls,” the nickname feels right, somehow; she could just ask him what his name is, but this seems more intriguing. She’s sort of wondering where he’s going with this. (She’s sort of wondering where she’d let him take it.)

Her phone dings, and when she unlocks it, she finds a selfie of Samu and Nano, posing next to her front door. Samu looks dorky, but Nano looks hot as fuck — his chin is kind of ridiculous. Grinning, she sends back a few heart eye emojis and locks it again. 

Next to her, Curls is watching her phone screen with interest. “Your boyfriend? Boyfriends?” 

The drink in her hand is empty, and she absentmindedly finds herself playing with the cup. Another drink would be nice, but that would require getting up and going inside to face all these intimidating strangers with their stares and hushed whispers of gossip. 

“You really think I’d be capable of having multiple boyfriends? Is that just a regular thing around here?” 

“Capable? Sure,” he grins and it’s sort of crooked and weird, but in a good way. He seems a little crazy. “Kinda hoping you don’t, though.” 

He hasn’t been subtle so far, and he’s definitely not subtle now, when he turns towards her and casually starts playing with the bottom of her top, hand splaying on her stomach a second later and teasing upward. 

“Bold of you to assume I’d sleep with someone who’s name I don’t even know,” she says, trying for a defiant tone but it comes out sort of hushed because he’s too close to her. Rebe doesn’t do well with (hot) people all up in her personal space; it makes her a little impulsive. 

His grin is wicked when he says, “Who said anything about sleeping with me?” 

Fuck him for turning this around on her. She leans over, her nose brushing his hair and if she moved her leg up now, she’d be straddling him. She’s not gonna do that. (Now.)

“Let’s get another drink,” she says, then grabs his hand where it’s still resting on her stomach and pushes it off, getting up. All he does is chuckle and shake his head a little as he’s getting to his feet.  
  
This is all really fucking random. She’s kind of enjoying the distraction from feeling lonely and weird around all of these posh girls, though.

Inside, she mixes herself another (mostly) rum and (less) coke, then glances at— well, whatever his name is — and pours him a drink as well.  
  
He’s leaning in to whisper in her ear when she notices Lu glaring at her from across the room, where she’s perched in Guzmán’s lap. Pulling away from him, Rebe puts a hand on his arm and cocks her brow.

“Why’s Little Miss Perfect glaring at me? Are you two, like, a thing?” 

He cracks up at that, starts laughing like he doesn’t have a care in the world, and she kind of finds that really, really hot. It doesn’t answer her question, though. “Well?”

Grinning, he runs a hand down her arm and shakes his head a little, his curls moving with each shake. “She’s my sister.” 

Rebeka wants to make a Game of Thrones reference, but doesn’t. Incest jokes probably aren’t appropriate, but damn it, it’s tempting.  
  
“Older or younger?”  
  
He looks older than sixteen, but maybe she’s just bad at guessing people’s ages.  
  
“Older. Turning 18 in November, and lucky you is invited to the party,” he gives her a look that’s somehow both playful and sexually charged, and she wonders how he’s pulling this whole thing off.  
  
Grabbing his arm, she goes to direct him back out onto the balcony because she doesn’t like people knowing her business, even if it’s just who she’s spending her night talking to. The second she closes the balcony door behind them, it opens again and Lucrecia steps outside and in between her and hot mystery dude.  
  
“Rebeka — hi,” Lu singsongs sweetly, and Rebeka wants to skip to the part where they insult each other. “I see you’ve met my lovely brother.”  
  
Rebe gives him a questioning look and he shrugs, like this is just a normal level of crazy for his sister. Okay then.  
  
“Val,” she addresses him, so that must be his name. Rebe would like to have a word with their parents about naming conventions. “Don’t you have anything better to do than to pry on the poor, innocent new girl?”  
  
Val (?) laughs, then grins at Rebe. “I think she can handle me.”  
  
Lu rolls her eyes at her brother and turns to Rebeka. “Look, sweetie, Valerio here—“ she puts a hand on his chest, “He’s no good for you. Unless you like drugs and failing all your classes for months and having to repeat a grade.”  
  
Rebeka snorts, mainly because she couldn’t care less. It’s amusing to see Lu get all territorial over her fucking brother. “Are you asking me if I like drugs?”  
  
Next to them, Valerio cracks up. “I like her,” he says to his sister. “She’s my kind of gal.” 

Looking back and forth between them, Lu takes a deep breath and sighs as she backs away from them.  
  
“I warned you, new girl,” she throws over her shoulder. “Enjoy your inevitable crack overdose!”  
  
Something about that smug look on her face makes Rebe want to retaliate in the pettiest of ways.  
  
“I will, thank you so much for your concern, Lucrecia.”  
  
When Valerio grins at her at the mention of his sister’s full name, Rebeka smirks. Her hunch about Lu’s dislike for her name must’ve been spot on.  
  
The brunette leaves, and Rebe wordlessly chugs most of her drink.  
  
“Now, where were we…”  
  
They miss the 10:00 curfew, but Las Encinas’ lack of care for its students’ wellbeing means no one really cares anyway.  
  
Rebeka thinks she might end up liking it here after all.  
  
That doesn’t mean she wants to stay.  



	2. Chapter 2

She isn’t hungover at all on Sunday, but she still barely leaves her room. Having people around all the time has been exhausting. Rebeka isn’t introverted, per se, but meeting so many new people at once and having to muster up the energy to bicker with Lu took a lot out of her. 

There’s a hickey on her neck when she finally gets out of bed and runs a brush through her hair, and isn’t that just great? Of course Valerio had to go ahead and mark her up for all the world to see. 

Nothing happened, really. They hung out for a few hours, compared notes on dumb shit they’ve pulled in their lifetime and maybe they kissed a little. Maybe it got a little heated, and maybe she had to force herself to jump up and off his lap when he slipped his hands into her sweatpants even though they were still out on that stupid balcony, where anyone could see. Rebeka didn’t want to give anyone a free show. 

It was, objectively speaking, a really hot make-out session, but that’s all. She barely knows him, his sister is a fucking possessive psychopath, and a school with an average class size of fifteen probably isn’t the place to get a reputation for sleeping around before classes even start. 

She sleeps through breakfast, then misses lunch on purpose and walks over to the vending machines in the main building instead. A bag of M&Ms and a Diet Coke are both valid, nutritious choices. 

The WiFi here is decent, at least, so she spends the day watching random shit on Netflix, then FaceTimes Samu in the afternoon. 

“What’s that on your neck?” He says, and she curses herself for not changing into a hoodie for this call. Fuck. “Hey, Nano, come look at this!” 

As if this couldn’t get more annoying. Nano saunters over, a bottle of beer in hand and grins into the camera when he spots her. 

“Well, you didn’t waste any time,” he’s smirking, and Samu is laughing next to him. “How’s the quality of dick at private school? Are you getting your money’s worth?”  
  
Of course, he's just teasing and being crass to humor Samu, she’s pretty sure. Fuck it; she’ll go with it. She’s bored enough, anyway. 

“It’s just so reassuring to know if I accidentally get knocked up, they’ll actually be able to afford to pay child support,” she says, and Nano just takes a swig of his beer and leaves again. Good. It’s too weird, this flirty thing they’ve got going on, especially when his brother is in the room. 

For dinner, she changes into one of the stupid Las Encinas hoodies she was given for the sole purpose of covering up the bite mark on her neck. She’s gonna kill Valerio. It took her one day here to feel the need to resort to killing strangers, but she’s definitely going to kill him. 

“Love the school spirit,” Marina jokes when she meets Rebeka at the salad bar. Rebe just rolls her eyes and shovels more tomatoes on her plate; she’s craving vitamins after her vending machine lunch. Marina watches that with interest. “Get the tofu, it’s amazing.” 

Rebe highly doubts that, but some protein would probably do her some good, so she adds some to her salad.  
  
They sit down at a table in the corner of the room and Rebe smiles when Ander wanders over.  
  
“Where’s your sidekick?”  
  
Ander shrugs. “Polo’s back so they’re probably out celebrating his return in the city, or some shit like that.”  
  
“We have a classmate named Polo? Is everyone at this school secretly competing for the title of dumbest name ever?”  
  
Marina grins. “Speaking of, I heard you met Las Encinas’ most infamous sibling duo...” 

Of course Marina ‘heard’ about that. It’s probably impossible to keep anything on the down-low at this school.  
  
“Hard to believe they’re related, honestly,” Rebe says, and Ander laughs.  
  
His mouth full of salad, he mumbles, “They’re more alike than you think.”  
  
She doesn’t really care enough to find out. Valerio probably isn’t even gonna be in most of her classes, so she won’t see him much, and she’ll try her best to avoid Lu. Steering clear of drama sounds sensible.  
  
Valerio falls into step with her as she’s walking out of the dining hall talking to Marina, who just grins at her and butts out of the conversation. Rebe thinks it’s kind of annoying that the girl seems to think there’s something going on between them, but whatever.  
  
“The fuck do you want?” She asks him nonchalantly, and he flashes her a bright smile. 

“I think we started something yesterday that I'm not done with yet."   
  
It’s a testament to his charm that he actually pulls that line off. A fucking miracle.  
  
She’s gonna fuck with him a little, just because. “Yeah? What’s that?”  
  
“You told me you don’t like tequila,” he says, which was really something she only said to piss him off because he seemed so adamant about tequila being the best kind of alcohol. She likes being contrary. “I’m gonna change your mind.”  
  
It’s seven o'clock and they both have to be up at 8:15 for class tomorrow, but Rebe figures they can hang out for a while anyway. She does actually like tequila, so if he’s offering his company and a few drinks, she’ll take him up on that.  
  
Boarding school is fun, because it means she gets to say, “Your place or mine?”  
  
He sneaks her into his dorm room, pours them both a shot, and when she takes off the hoodie a few drinks in, he gives her this ridiculously hot look, fixating on the mark on her neck. She’s decided they’re not gonna actually be anything more than friends, so she doesn’t use it as an opening to flirt.  
  
“Don’t look so smug,” she laughs.  
  
Valerio reaches for the bottle of tequila and grins as he pours himself another shot. “Sorry, neck biting is kind of my thing.”  
  
She runs a hand over her collarbone and rolls her eyes when he instantly starts focusing on it, like he can’t stop himself from staring. He really does have a neck fetish.  
  
“So you like drugs, trouble and neck biting? That’s quite a list.”  


They’re sitting on his bed, their backs against the wall, a little tray with two shot glasses perched in Valerio’s lap. He nudges her shoulder and nods.  
  
“What’s on your list? Wait, no, let me guess,” he seems to think about it for a moment and looks her over in a calculating way. “Sarcasm, bad boys and rum?”  
  
He’s not wrong, she’ll give him that.  
  
“What makes you think I like bad boys?”  
  
He grins at her, so bashful and delighted and somehow contagious enough for her to grin back at him. It makes her wonder if he might not be such a bad boy after all.  
  
“You’re here, aren’t you?”  
  
She laughs louder than she has in a few days, then grabs the bottle of tequila and pours them both another round. His random, borderline cringey pickup lines are kind of hilarious.  
  
“Hey,” he beams at her. “I got you to like tequila.”  
  
And honestly, she sees no reason to tell him she never disliked tequila in the first place. He looks so happy about having converted her; she can’t make herself ruin that.  
  
“Yeah,” she clinks his shot glass with hers. “You did.”  
  
She has a little bit of a headache on her first day of class, but she also has a friend at this school now, and she kind of thinks that makes the pain worth it.  
  
**  
  
Classes are overwhelming if kind of interesting.  
  
See, Rebe never had a reason to care about academics before. She went to a shitty public school in a school district which consistently produces some of the worst test scores in the country, with people from a similar background as her, and no one had any grand illusions about becoming doctors or lawyers after graduation. She’s always been quick on the uptake, and she never really struggled in school, but she wouldn’t call herself a good student by any means.  
  
And while she’s never really had to care about school, she kind of figures since she literally lives there now, she’ll have to take it a little more seriously. It’s hard to skip school and ignore homework assignments when you live three minutes away and any made-up excuse about leaving homework at home can be canceled out by being told to go get it.  
  
All in all, classes at Las Encinas are more intense, because there are less students in them, so every class discussion requires her input. That’s what makes her first few days exhausting. It’s kind of hard to just pay attention all the time. But the stuff they’re discussing is interesting, and the teachers are engaging and also much younger than the sort of crooks she got stuck with in the public school system, so that’s promising.  
  
As far as getting the best education money can buy, Rebeka has a feeling her mom had a point about that. She’s not sure it was worth sending her across the country for, but there are certainly benefits in being educated with the country’s future leaders of tomorrow.  
  
Most of the students are boarders who live in the dorms, but there are a few day students from the nearest town as well, and they seem a lot more chill than the elites she’s stuck living wall to wall with.  
  
Marina introduces her to Nadia when the girl sits down to have lunch with them. She’s wearing a pretty pale blue hijab with her school blazer, and she’s generally kind of one of the prettiest people Rebe has ever seen, so she’s pretty stoked about having her around already. People who are pleasing to the eye are definitely welcome to sit with her anytime. (Speaking of, where the hell is Ander?)  
  
Nadia tells her she’s here on a scholarship, that she’d probably kill herself if she was anything like the kids here, then grins at Marina and says, “No offense,” and Rebe thinks they’ll get along just fine.  
  
“Tell me more about this outside world you speak of,” Rebe says, giving Nadia a questioning look. “Are you saying if I ever leave this campus, there’s a whole world out there for me to discover?”  
  
Nadia laughs as she nods. “You might even run into people who don’t act like their shit doesn’t stink.”  
  
“Hey,” Marina interjects. “I’ll have you know my shit smells lovely!”  
  
“Sweetie, we’ve been over this, you’re the exception to the rule,” Nadia looks around the cafeteria and gives Marina a pointed look when she finds the table Lu, Guzmán, Ander and the rest of their gang are sat at. “I was mostly talking about people like your brother.”  
  
Rebeka snorts. She already likes this girl.  
  
“I have no further objections at this point, your honor,” Marina says, throwing her hands up in the air in defeat.  
  
She’s headed to French class after lunch, which she’s taking at an intermediate level because public school definitely did not prepare her for anything else, so she bombed the short placement test she had to take.  
  
When she walks into the classroom, she doesn’t recognize a single person, so she’s pretty sure everyone else taking this class is at least two years younger than her. The seat next to her stays empty until Ander rushes in right in time with the bell going off, earning a scolding look from their French teacher as he sits down next to Rebe.  
  
“Thank fucking god,” she whispers, and he smiles at her. “I was beginning to think I’d have to suffer through this class by myself, with only these children to keep me company.”  
  
There’s a grin on his lips as he points at his forehead and says, “Not a language person — must be because of all the tennis balls I’ve been hit in the head with.”  
  
Their French teacher starts talking about something or other — Rebe has no fucking clue, she never got past the ordering a croissant at the cafe level of French — and when Ander slides his notes over to her, the word _hangman?_ written at the top, she smiles and nods as she thinks of a word.  
  
He guesses the word in less than a minute — she’s bad at these games, but playing them is still preferable to actually paying attention in class.  
  
Maybe she should’ve chosen a word other than ‘French', but whatever. Ander laughs when he writes out the word, and it gets him a warning from their teacher, who says something loud and threatening in French.  


She asks him something that Rebeka _thinks_ might be related to what they were doing, and when he fumbles with his pen as he tries to think of the right words to reply, Rebe has to stifle a laugh.  
  
“Nous jouons… uh… _hangman_?”  
  
The entire class is looking at him, kind of laughing along with them, and Rebe decides maybe she’ll like French class.  
  
Ander is fun, especially when Guzmán isn’t around to keep him in check. Rebe really doesn’t like bullies.  
  
She’ll probably never learn how to say that in French, but whatever.  
  
**  
  
Her final class of the day is math, and she’s literally ready to fall asleep at her desk the second she spots Valerio and slides into the seat next to him. She puts her head on his shoulder, closes her eyes and he laughs as he ruffles her hair.  
  
“Not a math wiz either, Curls?”  
  
This is standard level math, which honestly still sounds a little too difficult for Rebe’s liking. Sadly there was no math for fucking hopeless dumbasses class that she could’ve picked.  
  
He shakes his head, which is kind of annoying considering _her_ head is currently resting on his shoulder.  
  
Then someone is clearing their throat next to her, and when Rebe opens her eyes to glare at whatever stupid person is interrupting her two-minute nap, it’s Marina.  
  
Thank god. She’s pretty sure being friends with someone who _likes_ math would’ve been impossible.  
  
The girl sits down at the little desk across the aisle and Rebe ignores the suggestive way she’s glancing between Rebe and Valerio. There’s no way anyone would ever actually cuddle with their boyfriend like this in the middle of a crowded classroom, right? How fucking awkward would that be? Ew.  
  
She’s not in the mood for small talk, but Marina clearly doesn’t know her well enough not to try yet. “Having a good day?”  
  
“Nearly set the chem lab on fire earlier,” Rebe grins. Next to her, Valerio makes an impressed noise. “So yeah, obviously.”  
  
“Let’s hang out later,” Marina says, and if Rebe wasn’t too tired to function, she’d probably be in.  
  
“We’ll see, not sure I’ll even still be awake after dinner.”  
  
Her phone vibrates in her pocket halfway through class, and even though she knows there’s a strict no-phone policy, she takes a peek at it. It’s a text that reads _‘going into town later, join me’_ sent by an unknown number, and before she can wonder about who the fuck is texting her, she feels Valerio’s hand on her thigh, gently nudging her.  
  
**14:27:** how did you even get my number  
  
**14:27:** _school registry has them on file_  
  
**14:28:** that’s creepy  
  
**14:29:** _we’re all family around here!!!_  
  
She snorts a little, then puts her phone away before their teacher notices. She’s gonna need all the help she can get to pass math at all; there’s no way she’d ever recover from making a bad first impression on the teacher.  
  
It doesn’t take a ton of pestering for her to agree to go with him. She does feel a little bad about ditching Marina, since the girl technically asked her to hang out first, but it’s not like she’ll ever even know Rebe didn’t spend her night in her room, sleeping off the utter exhaustion she feels after successfully making it through her first full day of classes.  
  
“Just give me five minutes to change out of this fucking blazer,” she tells him after class, then meets him out front at the school gates a few minutes later, having changed into a casual pair of ripped jeans and a random slipknot shirt she stole from Nano once, back when he was going through his weird metal phase.  
  
Valerio is in a shimmery green satin top, beige cargo pants and loafers. His designer sunglasses are perched on his nose and… There’s a lot going on.  
  
Rebeka almost laughs.  
  
“Didn’t take you for someone that’s into extravagant fashion,” she says, running a hand over his shirt. It’s soft and slippery and while that can’t possibly be comfortable to wear, she loves the way the texture feels under her fingers.  
  
“Didn’t take you for a metalhead,” he counters, then leads her to the car he presumably ordered. It’s definitely not an Uber, but Rebe figures asking about why students at this school just have private for-hire drivers on speed dial would out her as too nouveau riche to function, so she refrains.  
  
“Not my shirt,” is all she says, and he grins at her as they get in the backseat of the car.  
  
“Which bad boy did you steal this from?”  
  
Maybe she likes keeping an air of mystery around her past love life, because she says, “None of your business,” and loves the way he tries to get her to talk about it for the rest of the twenty-minute car ride.  
  
They finally pull up to what looks like a random apartment block in a somewhat middle-class neighborhood, and when Valerio leads her over to a nearby park bench to sit down, she gives him a weird look.  
  
“Why are we sitting around on a random bench?”  
  
Valerio’s answer to her question is a grin. She’s quickly learning he’s not a man of many words.  
  
Then a stocky looking short kid rounds the corner, spots Valerio and sprints towards him with the biggest smile on his face, engulfing him in a proper hug — not one of those silly manly pats on the back — when he gets close enough.  
  
“My man,” the shorter dude exclaims. Rebe can’t stop staring at the random stud earring he’s wearing; it’s tacky enough to remind her of home. The guy is definitely a little sketchy, but he seems genuine. “Welcome back, rich kid!”  
  
Valerio jumps up and down a little; Rebe thinks his unbridled childlike enthusiasm is probably his best quality. He’s like a puppy — you can’t possibly hate him when he acts like this.  
  
When the intense bro hug concludes, the guy spots Rebe sitting on the bench and holds his hand out for her to shake. 

“Val was right, you don’t look like a snobby bitch,” he laughs, and she sort of slaps his hand in a low five instead of shaking it — no need to be this fucking formal. “I’m Christian, Valerio’s only connection to the real world.” 

Valerio puts an arm around him. “And every other world.” 

When Rebe gives him a confused look, he clarifies, “He’s my drug dealer,” like that should’ve been obvious. Excuse her for not assuming any guy that vaguely looks like he might be from the hood sells drugs.

“Rebeka,” she tells Christian. “But Rebe is fine.” 

“Do you smoke weed, Rebe?” 

She scoffs. They’re both just staring at her like they’re waiting for an answer and it takes her a minute to realize it. When she does, she lets out a chuckle and nods. “Sorry, I assumed that was a rhetorical question.” 

They get reasonably high for a Monday afternoon, and Christian and Val give her a very brief, very under the influence tour of the tiny town center before it’s time for her and Val to head back for dinner. They are apparently allowed to just miss mealtimes, but after just three days at this school, Rebe can already tell that sort of thing will lead to chatter, so they make it back to the dining hall by 7:45, just a few minutes before dinner ends. 

She feels cozy and relaxed and all kinds of comfortable as she makes her way to the salad bar, where she’s sad to find the tofu is all gone — Marina was right about that the other day, it’s weirdly delicious. She settles for a more traditional Caesar salad, then grabs a large slice of cheesecake for dessert, and follows Val to a seat near the window, where he’s chatting with Lu’s blonde friend and the guy she’s seen hovering around Ander and Guzmán all day. 

Normally she’d be more apprehensive about sitting down for dinner with all new people, but the way she’s still stoned enough to keep her cool helps her wander over and sit down next to the blonde girl, across from Valerio. 

There’s a brief moment of awkward silence before Valerio starts giggling. He really should try harder to be subtle about how high he is right now. He definitely smoked a little more than her, and he doesn’t seem to care that the three people sat around him are giving him little warning glances. 

He finally snaps out of it. “Rebe — have you met Polo and Carla? Las Encinas’ very own royal couple.” 

Polo sort of looks a little uncomfortable with that label, his eyes flitting back and forth nervously until Carla grasps his hand across the table. 

“I’ve seen you around,” Rebe tells Carla. “You hang out with Val’s bitchmaster of a sister right?” 

She’s not sure if she would’ve used that term if she was sober, but she decides she likes the mild dig. If Carla’s really friends with Lu, she’ll be used to these kinds of comments for sure. 

Val kicks her under the table, apparently just to let her know he thought that was a funny thing to say, because when she looks over at him he’s grinning. 

Carla nods knowingly like she’s used to having to apologize for her friend. “Lu comes on a little strong,” she says diplomatically, playing with the watch on Polo’s wrist. “Give her some time.” 

Shit, Rebeka didn’t actually think that the intimidatingly hot blonde girl would be anything more than a mean girl. Now she’ll have to reassess her whole elaborate view on the complex personalities attending this school. 

They chat about their first day of classes, bond about the stupidly boring history class they all sat through together today, and when she finishes her salad and digs into her cheesecake, Valerio pouts. 

“I want cake,” he says, like a spoiled toddler. 

Rebe rolls her eyes in his face. “So get up and get some!”

He doesn’t get up, instead picks up his dinner fork and forks a bite of her cake into his mouth. It’s good cheesecake and she hates sharing food, so she kicks his shin a little harder than necessary and pulls the plate closer to herself. 

“Get your own, bitch,” she hisses, but the small grin on her face probably gives her away. She’s enjoying this back and forth. 

Carla and Polo finally get up to attend to whatever royal couple duties they might have planned for the night, and Rebe sighs as she reluctantly pushes her plate of dessert towards the middle of the table. 

“Fine,” she relents, then takes another bite of the cake. “But you owe me.” 

“I’ll make it up to you after,” he promises, and she’s too comfortable to read into it or wonder what the hell he’s talking about. 

Apparently he’s talking about smoking another joint behind the school gymnasium, napping on the grass with her head in his lap and a very needed trip to the vending machines for snacks. 

It’s a pretty good deal. She’s not complaining. 

As she’s getting up to finally sneak back to her room — she still isn’t sure which rules are and aren’t enforced at this school — Valerio holds her down by the shoulders, slides her shirt sleeve down and she sort of moans and groans at the same time when she realizes what he’s about to do. He really does have some sort of neck fixation, because he leans down to suck on the very spot on her collarbone where the mark he left was just starting to fade, like he wants to preserve his handiwork just a little longer. 

“You have a problem,” she grins. 

He shrugs, so at least he’s self-aware. 

**

She’s barely closed the door to her room behind herself when there’s a knock, quickly followed by it opening and closing and a whirlwind fast whoosh of red curls. 

Rebeka is just stepping out of her jeans, but she’s never really had any issue with nudity, and she’s still feeling a little blissed out and chill, so she just smiles at Marina and waits for whatever the hell the girl came here to say. 

What she does say, is, however, pretty fucking annoying. “How was your date?” 

Slipping into a pair of PJ pants, Rebe rolls her eyes. “It wasn’t a date,” she insists, then sits down on her unmade bed. Marina instantly takes that as an invitation to join her. People at this fucking school have no concept of personal space.  
  
“Carla said you two looked… cozy,” Marina smirks.  
  
Rebe takes that as an invitation to laugh. “Well, if Carla said it, it must be true!”  
  
This conversation would be more annoying if Marina didn’t seem so obviously delighted and excited at the prospect of finding out more about her alleged illicit affair with Valerio.  
  
Shaking her arm, the redhead grins, says, “Tell me!”  
  
“Look, I’m a little too stoned to play interrogation, mom,” she says.

Marina kind of beams at the silly nickname. “He made you smoke weed? This darn Valerio fella is corrupting my little girl by exposing her to the devil’s grass!”  
  
Okay, that’s fucking hilarious. They both crack up, and Marina grins smugly.

“Damn, where did that come from?” 

Marina winks at her, then puts her head in her lap and Rebe instinctively starts untangling some of her curls for her. 

“My mom is my biggest inspiration,” Marina says. “Takes a real hypocrite to know one, you know?” 

Pff. Yeah, Rebeka can relate to that. Her mother is weirdly anal about Rebe’s drug habits for someone who literally sells that shit in bulk for a living. She refrains from mentioning that to Marina for now — it’s been a welcome thing to discover that rich people consider it impolite to ask about the source of someone’s wealth. 

Then they’re both silent for a while, and Marina sort of grabs her chin at an awkward angle to make Rebe look down at her. 

“He seriously didn’t try anything?” 

There really is no need to tell her they’ve already kissed. Marina doesn’t need to know about the stupid hickey that’s probably never going to fully vanish at this rate. Rebeka likes knowing she’s the only one privy to that sort of information. 

“Who says I want him to?” 

Marina starts laughing, then closes her eyes and seems to drift off for a moment before she speaks again. “You better fucking tell me what he’s like in bed when he gets you on your back,” she says quietly, and Rebe slaps her arm a little in retaliation. 

If this is what being friends with girls entails, she might actually not hate the concept. 

Potentially.  
  
Before she can get sentimental, she shoos Marina off of her and out of her room.  
  
“Sweet dreams,” Marina singsongs, then smirks at her as she leans against the frame of her door. “Don’t let the Valerio fantasies keep you up.”  
  
She groans, then punches her shoulder for good measure.  
  
They do keep her up for a while, but she’s never gonna admit that to anyone. 


	3. Chapter 3

  
Lu kicks her in the fucking shin at soccer practice. They’re not even playing a scrimmage, or practicing tackling; they’re literally doing running drills with the ball, which takes about all the coordination Rebe can muster, and Lu somehow manages to ‘bump’ into her and trip over her foot as she kicks her, hard. 

It really fucking hurts, but she can’t give Lu the satisfaction of letting the pain show on her face. 

“What the fuck,” Rebeka whispers, angry, as she holds out her hand to help Lu up. She’s not enough of a snitch to alert their coach to this little incident, but she also won’t just let Lu get away with this. 

“You were in the way,” Lu retorts, grabbing Rebe’s hand to get up off the grass. Her knees are stained green, and she reaches down to wipe at them. Then she smirks at Rebe, says, “Sorry,” and clearly doesn’t mean it even a little bit. 

These stupid little fights are getting exhausting. 

Rebe’s kind of considering her options — she’d love nothing more than to just slap Lu, hard. God, the satisfying slapping sound alone would probably give her a nice natural high for several hours. She has a feeling Lu might even be into that — that she'd take pleasure in hitting her back and making it hurt.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t get the chance. Carla runs towards them, somehow always on hand to keep her friend in check. It must get exhausting, having to police someone’s aggressive outbursts like this. 

The blonde looks between the two of them, notices the way they’re both stubbornly glaring at each other, then grabs Lu by the arm and roughly pulls her away, rolling her eyes. 

“Behave,” Rebe hears her scold, and the whole thing is almost funny. 

Her aim is terrible, so she isn’t even kidding when she apologizes to Lu for hitting her in the stomach with a ball when trying to pass it to her. That genuinely wasn’t on purpose but the little frustrated groan the girl lets out in response kind of makes her want to do it again.

Soccer isn’t quite as good as boxing when it comes to releasing pent up aggression, but Rebeka makes it work. 

** 

It has to be seriously bad karma or something. That’s the only possible reason why someone would actually walk in on Rebe puking her guts out in one of the bathrooms at three in the morning. And here she was, hoping that everyone else would be too busy sleeping to notice what a total fucking wreck she is. 

When she briefly stops retching long enough to look up, she sees it’s Carla. That’s just great. There isn’t really anyone she would’ve rather had walk in on her — the fact that anyone found her like this at all is what she’s annoyed about.

She must look seriously awful because Carla takes one look at her, then takes two confident steps in her direction and crouches down to hold her hair back. She’s sure there’s vomit in it, so she’s really appreciating the sacrifice Carla is making here. Usually Rebe fucking hates having to rely on other people, but right now she’s too far gone to protest.

“Everything okay?” Carla asks when Rebeka takes a break from dry heaving over the toilet bowl. She scowls at the blonde in response, which is apparently a good enough answer for her because she just sort of pats Rebe’s shoulder a little. 

“You know, we did tell you not to mix wine and rum,” Carla says quietly, because she’s kind of a no-nonsense know-it-all who probably can’t resist delving into I-told-you-so territory. It's probably still better than what Lu would say if she found her like this. 

Rebe tries to speak, but her throat’s a little dry from puking, so all that comes out is a croak. She clears her throat and tries again. “Like I was gonna let Lu win like that,” Rebe finally says and leans back against the wall of the bathroom stall. Backing down from a dare is equivalent to defeat when it comes to Lu; she can’t afford to let that happen. 

Carla decides to stops squatting and sits down on the floor, crossing her legs. “That’s a great reason to spend your Friday night throwing up, you’re right.” 

Rebe is finally coming to a little, and she looks at the blonde next to her with interest. She’s never seen Carla look this casual, and yet she still looks fucking flawless. She’s in a pair of simple beige sweatpants which probably cost a fortune and a white tank top, her face stripped bare of the makeup she usually wears and her hair up in a ponytail.  
  
If she wasn’t literally halfway through (god, she hopes she’s halfway through) a night of drunk vomiting, she’d probably feel weird about sitting next to Carla in just an oversized shirt and underwear. No, right now feeling self-conscious is kind of the furthest thing from her mind.

She can’t help but grin at the blonde. “The illusion’s shattered,” she murmurs, gesturing to Carla’s makeup-less complexion and Carla rolls her eyes a little, smiling. “Why are you awake anyway?”

It seems like that was the wrong thing to ask, because the relaxed expression disappears from Carla’s face and she clenches her jaw just a tad. The last thing Rebe wants to check off her boarding school bucket list is a late-night heart to heart in the bathroom, but she does wanna make sure Carla is okay. As a thank you for helping her not puke all over her hair, or whatever.

When Rebe doesn’t let up and gives Carla a probing look, she kind of shrugs, then draws her knees to her chest. There’s a hair tie on her wrist, and Rebe glances at it, then leans forward to grab it. She’s about five drinks past asking first. Finally getting her hair out of her face feels amazing when she twists it up in a bun. 

“Yeah, I’m not having the time of my life either,” she finally says, because she’s a big believer in commiserating. 

It’s not like she hasn’t been drinking to forget tonight. She’s still fucking pissed at her mother, and at Nano. The call from Samuel earlier had been kind of unexpected, and the way he’d tried to sound casual when he told her Nano was working with Sandra now just made her take the news even harder. 

Fucking idiots, all of them. Sandra has never cared enough to be ethical about the people she employs, but Nano still has his whole life ahead of him. He’s not stupid enough to do this sort of thing; he shouldn’t be setting himself up for a prison sentence and a whole list of convictions before the age of thirty. He’s always been a little sketchy, but joining her mother in the underworld big leagues is way above his pay grade.  
  
That’s why she’s here now — at three in the morning on a Friday night, her stomach in literal knots as she’s trying not to hurl all over herself. Fucking Nano. 

She barely knows Carla. They’ve had two or three short conversations over the past few days, never anything particularly personal, and they don’t hate each other, but that’s it. Maybe that’s why she sort of wants to tell her what’s going on, just because telling someone at all might feel nice.  
  
Carla beats her to it.  


The blonde sighs a little, then tightens her ponytail and doesn’t meet Rebe’s eyes when she says, “I think Polo might be cheating on me.”

Well, shit. Heart to heart in the bathroom it is. 

“On _you_?” Rebe asks, voice incredulous. “Why the fuck would anyone cheat on _you_?”

Carla shakes her head and looks down, her voice quiet and deliberate. “Forget it.” 

“You can’t just say shit like that and then go back to pretending everything’s fine.”

There’s a mean quality to Carla’s smile now. “Of course I can,” she says. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but everyone around here is an expert at pretending.” 

Rebe doesn’t want to seem like she’s trying to get away from this conversation, but she could really use some water, so she gets up and walks over to one of the sinks, leaving the stall door ajar to keep an eye on Carla. 

After splashing some water on her face, she looks back at Carla. “What does Lu think?” 

“I haven’t told her,” Carla says quietly. “She’d get all judgmental and protective and I don’t need her meddling in my shit.” 

That’s probably a fair assessment, but it’s still kind of amusing to Rebe. The competitive asshole in her that gets triggered by Lu’s very existence feels a little smug about knowing about this when Lu doesn’t. Maybe Carla liked the idea of telling someone who barely knows anything about her, too. It definitely seems like less of a risk. 

Rebe scoops some water into her mouth using her hands, then wipes them on her pajama pants and sits back down next to Carla. 

“Why do you think he’s cheating?” She asks, just because she’ll take this seriously if Carla wants her to. She’s a good listener — maybe it’ll help the blonde to say it out loud, to make her feel less crazy and paranoid. 

Carla seems to consider this. “He’s been— I don’t know, weird? He’s always gotten a little awkward and flustered in certain situations but we’ve been together since we were 12,“ holy shit, okay, that’s intense, “And I’ve never seen him like this.” 

“That doesn’t mean he’s cheating, though. Maybe something else is going on,” Rebe says. There’s always a rational explanation for stuff like this, right? Polo doesn’t really seem like a cheater.

Carla sighs, then rolls her eyes at no one in particular — probably at herself. “Maybe.” Then she looks over at Rebe, a curious look on her face. “So why were you hellbent on getting trashed tonight? There’s no way you did this just to keep up with Lu.” 

It’s always the quiet ones. Perceptive people are the worst. But Carla has already done her part in this late-night over-sharing exercise; Rebe figures she might as well tell her about Nano. 

“One of my friends is getting mixed up in some stupid shit back home,” she alludes, then shrugs. “He’s an adult, he can do whatever the fuck he wants but— I don’t know, it feels like it’s on me if I don’t put a stop to it. Like it’s my fucking fault for not being around.”  
  
Vague, but whatever. She’s not gonna go around advertising the fact that her mother runs a fucking drug ring out of their tiny living room, not when she’s surrounded by the offspring of lawyers and politicians and fucking Marquesas.  


Carla shakes her head. “That sounds like a him problem. Let him fuck up, he’ll learn his lesson,” she says, and Rebe is reminded of how different their circumstances are. Of course there’s no crime too great to just write off as a lesson to be learned in Carla’s world — easy for her to say when her family’s got the money and the connections to bribe their way out of anything. 

“Yeah, they don’t exactly let normal people off with a slap on the wrist for drug trafficking,” she deadpans. “They can’t just buy the district attorney a new car and call it a day.”

Carla actually seems to consider that, then sits up on her knees and pulls herself off the floor. 

“These things are out of our control,” she says, finally. “Let’s just go to bed.” 

Neither of them mentions that this should stay between them, but there’s really no need to. Rebeka isn’t enough of an asshole to use this against Carla — she hopes Carla isn’t gonna make her regret telling her about this, either. 

They silently leave the bathroom, and when they get to Rebe’s door, she reaches for her hair and holds the hair tie out to Carla. 

“Keep it,” Carla says. “There’s probably vomit on it.” 

Rebe groans, but there’s a smile on her lips when she disappears into her room. 

The vomiting sucked, but everything else about the unexpected late-night encounter was kind of nice. 

**

She’s hanging out with Ander the next day, sprawled on the big meadow behind the girl’s dorm. They’re passing a bag of Haribo back and forth, and her stomach is surprisingly okay with this being her first meal of the day.

Ander seems trustworthy, and he’s friends with Polo, so she decides to bite the bullet. 

“Is Polo cheating on Carla?”

Ander looks confused for a moment, then laughs. “What?” 

“Yeah, okay, that’s what I thought,” Rebe says, because he really doesn’t seem like enough of an asshole to cheat. 

“Why would you even ask me that?”

Rebe shrugs. “Heard some talk about it, and I figured you guys are close.” 

It’s kind of weird, being friends with so many different people at this school. There’s some random overlap between her groups of friends, but generally speaking, it feels like nobody’s ever just minding their own business here. Asking about Polo probably makes her part of that now, but whatever — she was just kind of curious. 

“Polo couldn’t hurt a fly,” Ander says, flipping over onto his stomach. “He adores Carla.” 

“He’s right to,” Rebe grins. “The girl is fucking hot.” 

They both laugh at that. Ander looks down at their phones and nudges her. 

“Valerio’s calling you,” he says, and she rolls her eyes. 

“Lazy bitch. He knows exactly where we are,” she says, then picks up and puts him on speakerphone. “What?”  
  
“Wanna get high and make out?” He sounds bashful, and Ander cracks up next to her.  
  
“You’re on speakerphone, dumbass.”  
  
A normal person would probably be deterred by that, but not Valerio.  
  
“Hi Ander, you’re welcome to join us for both activities,” Valerio adds, and Rebe rolls her eyes. “Meet me behind the tennis courts in 10.”  
  
He hangs up, and she’s left groaning.  
  
“Don’t even,” she scolds a moment later. “Nothing’s going on, Val’s just a fucking idiot.”  
  
Because Valerio is into her, on some level, but he seems like the kind of person who’s probably into everyone he meets. Sexual innuendo is just his way of small-talking.  
  
“I didn’t say anything,” is all Ander says. It’s still weird to Rebe how chill he is about everything. He told her the other day that he’s actually the principal’s son, which movies have told her should make him lame and unpopular, but he’s neither of those things.

She grabs his hand to help him up, then tugs on it to get him to follow her towards the sports complex. If he’s annoyed about Valerio hijacking their afternoon plans of literally not doing anything but sit on the grass and playing fuck, marry, kill using their teachers’ and classmates’ names, he doesn’t let it show. 

Valerio is already waiting for them when they get there, dressed in white tennis shorts and a green polo shirt, and Rebeka literally laughs at him. He looks absolutely ridiculous. 

“Hey,” he feigns offense. “This is my cover! If anyone finds us here I’ll just say Ander was giving me a private tennis lesson.” 

Valerio drops down on the floor, then reaches for Rebeka’s hand and pulls her into his lap. Ander is just sort of laughing at them but he sits down anyway, instantly taking the small bong Valerio brought out of the little plastic bag. 

“And what’s this,” Ander smiles. “Your tennis gear?” 

They all know no one at this school cares about whether or not three teenagers get high in the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon, but if Valerio is into silly elaborate cover stories, they’ll let him have that. 

He’s so fucking stupid sometimes, she really doesn’t know why she likes him at all.  
  
A few bong hits in, Valerio puts his head on her shoulder and leans in to nuzzle her neck. She puts a stop to that shit right away — it feels nice but now that she’s aware of his little fascination for necks, she knows not to encourage him.

“Christian’s having a party tonight,” Valerio says, pulling her back against his chest. “You two should join.”

Ander looks skeptical. “Mixing business with pleasure? Isn’t he your dealer?”

Val just shrugs and twirls a lock of Rebeka’s hair around his finger. She’s exhausted from last night’s activities, and the thought of a party is nearly enough to turn her stomach. 

“I am so not drinking again tonight,” she says, and even saying the word is making her want to retch. “Everyone at this school needs substance abuse counseling, and that’s coming from someone who grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in the country.”  
  
Ander chimes in, “I mean, nobody forced you to drink all that rum after the wine.”  
  
She rolls her eyes at him. That’s exactly what Carla had said, too — it’s apparent taunting her is on the school agenda, or something. 

Then, the boys both laugh, but it’s Valerio who unceremoniously slips a hand under the strap of her tank top as he says, “And who said anything about drinking?”

Ander grins. “Yeah, Rebe, _god_ — how dare you assume Valerio would spend a Saturday night doing something as ordinary as drinking when he can just trip on acid and shit his pants instead.” 

It’s Valerio’s turn to laugh, and she kind of wishes he didn’t because she’s leaning back against him and it’s making her whole body shake with his laughter; not ideal considering the way her stomach is still a little uneasy from last night. 

“That was one time, alright?” 

The boys launch into a few war stories, kind of competing for who can think of a more embarrassing memory of the other, and Rebe thinks it’s adorable. It makes her wonder what it would be like if she’d gotten here sooner — if she was a part of all of these old stories. Ander is apparently a little too lame so Valerio runs out of stories quickly. 

“Hey Ander — serious question time! Name one defining personality trait of yours other than tennis.” 

“Fuck you, dude,” Ander rolls his eyes, but he seems to be thinking about it. “I’m mysterious, ok? That’s a personality trait.”

“Ander’s just Ander,” Rebe chimes in. “That should be an adjective. It means minding your own business while you watch the world around you burn.”

Ander kind of nods at her, and Val chuckles a little. 

“So are you two coming tonight or what?” 

Rebe shrugs. She’ll probably go, but she’s not gonna acknowledge that yet. Ander is on his phone next to her, but looks up long enough to smile at them — he’s definitely a little stoned.

“Can I bring a friend?” He asks, and Valerio nods.

Somehow, Val says exactly what Rebeka is thinking. “As long as it’s not Guzmán.” 

“Aw, not a fan of your future brother in law?” She teases, even though she agrees with him. Judging by the way Valerio groans against her hair, he’s not.  
  
Rebe finds herself lying down with her head in Valerio’s lap at some point, her feet resting on Ander’s thighs, and she doesn’t realize she must’ve dozed off until Val nudges her and she opens her eyes to see the sun has mostly set. Ander is nowhere to be found, and Valerio is just sort of running his fingertips up and down her collarbones teasingly.  
  
“We gotta get ready,” he whispers, and all Rebe can do in response is groan. She doesn’t know how long she slept for, but she could go for a few more hours. When Val pulls her up by the shoulders she grunts, but reluctantly sits up.  
  
“Gimme a few minutes to shower,” she says, rubbing sleep from her eyes. He shrugs and grins at her, and she doesn’t wait for the stupid pick up line to shoot him down. “No, you can’t join me in the shower.”  
  
Val pouts a little and she rolls her eyes, then gets up and walks away from him.  
  
“Next time,” he yells after her, and she turns around to give him the finger.  
  
He’s the worst.  
  
**  
  
The party is in full swing when they arrive. Rebe’s in her usual dressed down ripped jeans and crop top, while Valerio went for a slightly more eccentric look — she’s not sure the velour leopard print shirt was strictly necessary, but he does kind of pull it off. Ander is just wearing jeans and a Lacoste shirt — she’s pretty sure he doesn’t own any other shirts — and the only one looking totally out of place is Polo, who Ander brought along. Too prim and proper, but it’s really the attitude that gives him away, not the outfit.  
  
Polo, who sort of eyed Rebeka all suspiciously when she got in the car, like he’s scared of her. The guy’s kind of hard to figure out — does he just have severe social anxiety or is he actually hiding something? Fuck knows.  
  
Anyway, the party seems fucking great. It’s loud and rowdy and people are actually relaxed and mingling carelessly, unlike the more quiet nights of drinking Rebe’s had to endure at school as of late. It would probably be a little more fun if she wasn’t still mildly hungover, but that’s a problem for another day — there’s pizza on a table in the corner, and she figures if she eats a dinner appropriate amount, she may be able to enjoy the night after all.  
  
Christian grins when he spots them walking in, instantly running over to put an arm around her and Val. “Make yourselves at home,” he touts, and Rebe holds back a joke about how the amount of drugs undoubtedly being consumed in their vicinity at the moment is definitely making her feel right at home. 

She goes straight for the food. Her appetite’s been gone all day, and she’s suddenly starving, so she scarves down two slices of pizza and instantly feels both more human and more awake. Carbs are totally a drug in their own right. 

Actual drugs seem to be everywhere, and if Rebe hadn’t grown up around that sort of stuff, she may be worried about how the amount of pills she’s seen casually passed around at this apartment could get them all arrested and put away for life. Well, the people without money and connections, anyway — Valerio, Ander and Polo would probably be fine. 

It’s surprising, maybe, that she watches Ander and Polo break a pill in half and swallow it. They’re not exactly the people she’d expect to be into recreational drug use. Valerio sees her watching them from across the room and grins, pulling her away and into a bedroom.  
  
They've been at this party for maybe an hour, and he's already trying to get her alone. God. 

“I’m not gonna fuck you in a dirty bedroom at a party,” she deadpans when he leans back against the closed door and grins at her.  
  
The light in the room is dim, just a small lamp on the bedside table, but it’s enough to make out the smirk on his face as he pulls a vial of coke from around his neck. She has no idea how she’s never noticed that necklace on him before.  
  
“Can I at least do coke off of your stomach?”  
  
Honestly, he has to be the weirdest fucking person she’s ever met. He’s impulsive and completely random, somehow.  
  
“Why, is that like a thing for you? Do you get off on snorting chemicals off of people?”  
  
She’s not sure why he took her in here at all, since everyone at this party is doing drugs anyway. There's no reason to sneak off to do coke when everyone else is openly snorting it at the fucking kitchen table. He’s walking towards her and pushes her down gently when her legs hit the bed. And fuck it, fine, why not. Rolling her eyes, she lies down on the sloppily made bed and unbuttons her high waisted jeans to give him more access.  
  
When she looks back at him, he’s kneeling next to the bed, sort of just staring at the expanse of her stomach on display. He reaches out a hand, brushes it over her abdomen and Rebe likes that a little too much — his hands on her.  
  
Then he laughs quietly, a boyish giggle, and shakes his head. His messy curls move in time with the shaking, and it’s a really cute look on him. So… sheepish somehow. It makes him look a little too innocent, considering the situation.  
  
He snaps out of it and goes back to the task at hand, carefully opening the little vial and spreading a short line of white powder out right above her belly button. When he leans forward to snort it, her breath sort of catches for no reason whatsoever. It just feels intimate, that’s all. He looks up at her, and there’s that grin again — the juvenile, enthusiastic one she likes so much.  
  
“You’re literally the weirdest person I know,” she says, trying to sit up, but he puts both of his large hands on her stomach to hold her down.  
  
“Nuh-uh,” he scolds, already back to racking up another line, this one below her belly button and a little longer than the last. Tilting his head forward, he snorts that too, then makes eye contact with her before he licks the remainder of it off. The moan she lets out is involuntary; there’s a hot guy literally licking at her stomach.  
  
“Val,” she says, her voice breathy and deep. “You can’t just—“ he’s got the reflexes of a cat, despite the drugs in his system, or maybe _because_ of them, because he’s on top of her in no time, leaning down to bite at her neck. Fuck. This is definitely not what she came here for.  
  
If only she was drunk. If only there was some illegal substance coursing through her bloodstream that she could blame this on. If she’s gonna let this happen, she’ll need something to blame it on.  
  
Grabbing onto his necklace with the vial of coke, she pulls him up, then motions for him to switch places with her, straddling him. She’s not gonna dwell on how much she likes the view from up here, how he looks like he’s completely in awe of her.  
  
His ridiculous leopard print shirt has buttons running down the front, and she undoes them quickly, then runs a hand over his abs. She has no idea how he’s in good enough shape to have abs at all; as far as she’s aware he doesn’t much care for sports and he certainly doesn’t eat healthy. He doesn’t eat much at all, actually.  
  
He’s honestly kind of unfairly hot, especially when he notices the way she’s just slowly pressing her fingers against his abs, staring at them kind of longingly. “Still think I’m weird?”  
  
“You can be hot and weird at the same time, dumbass,” she deadpans, then pulls her hand off his stomach to hold it out to him. “Give it to me.”  
  
She means the coke, of course, but she can tell he’s holding back a dirty joke.  
  
He shakes his head a little like he can’t fucking believe this is happening. Yeah, she can’t quite believe it either. She didn’t think this elitist boarding school would encourage her casual drug habit — if anything, she figured getting away from Nano and his sketchy crew would help her kick it altogether. Whatever. A little coke never hurt nobody.  
  
She spreads it out in a straight line down his abs expertly, and then adds a smaller line through it to form a cross. Valerio is sitting up enough to watch this and grins. “You’re good at that.”  
  
All she does in reply is raise a brow at him, and then she’s leaning down to let the coke coat her nostrils in two smooth, practiced breaths in. She licks the rest off of him, flinching slightly at the chemical taste, and then moves up a little, straddling his hips instead of his thighs. Her pants are still undone around her hips and he runs his hands down her side, then under the waistband of her jeans, grabbing onto her to pull her closer.  
  
Valerio laughs and blinks at her, and she wants him, like, so bad. It’s not the buzz of the coke talking, either, because she felt exactly the same way five minutes ago. The buzz is nice, too, though.  
  
When she leans down, he meets her halfway, and she moans into the kiss, grabbing onto his neck to direct him so he won’t need to move his hands from her hips. They find the right rhythm almost instantly, so much sooner than she usually does with other people, and this is all a little too fucking good.  
  
Almost good enough to make her forget they’re in someone’s messy bedroom at a house party.  


She doesn’t know how long they stay like that, exchanging frenzied kisses, grabbing at each other, barely registers the way Valerio bites down on her neck hard enough to draw blood until he’s soothing the mark with his tongue.  
  
His hands are playing with the waistband of her underwear, and she’s about to tell him to just fucking take off her clothes already, when the door opens and two people stumble in.  
  
Both her and Valerio freeze, as if that will make getting caught less awkward, but the two silhouettes haven’t noticed them yet, too busy pulling the door closed behind them and leaning in for a kiss. She clasps a hand over Val’s mouth when he goes to speak, too confused at what she thinks she’s witnessing to pay him any mind.  
  
The lighting in this room really is fucking terrible. Squinting against the light from the bedside table right next to them, she tries to make sense of the situation.  
  
Rebe’s eyes must be playing tricks on her, because from her vantage point on top of Val, she could swear it’s Ander and Polo on the other side of the room. Ander’s got the slightly shorter boy pushed back against the door as they’re kissing, and even in the dimly lit room, Rebe can tell it’s entirely too passionate to not be something they’ve done before. They’re both moaning a little, and Rebe can’t help it — she sees red. Cheaters are scum.  
  
Fuck this shit. Fuck them both.  
  
“What the actual fuck?”  
  
The boys jump apart, and Polo flips on the overhead lights by accident when he leans back against the light switch on the wall.  
  
They’re all just sort of staring at each other, speechless. She feels more than hears Valerio starting to laugh, his lungs filling with air under her hands, and this is all too fucking bizarre for her to handle considering the way she feels like she’s floating from the combination of coke and Valerio’s touch.  
  
“Well, shit,” Valerio says.  
  
Yeah, he can say that again. Holy fucking shit. 


	4. Chapter 4

“Calm down, Rebe,” Valerio says. They’re still sitting on whoever’s bed this is, are still at this random party, and she’s not sure she’s done yelling at Ander and Polo. Val’s arm around her feels more comforting than annoying, so she doesn’t push him away like she wants to. 

But she’s not gonna calm down. Not until Polo promises he’ll talk to Carla. And yeah, maybe this whole conversation would be going better if they weren’t all a little high, though she’s not sure whether the intense shiver running down her spine is from the coke or the anger.  
  
Her yelling has just gotten Polo to admit that this is a thing that’s been going on for a while and honestly? Fuck him. Fuck them. Fucking shitty of them.

There are very few things Rebeka hates more in this world than people being dishonest and playing games. Be a terrible person, by all means, but be transparent about it. (She admires that about Lu.)

“I’m just saying, if you don’t tell Carla tomorrow, I will,” she mutters, glaring at Polo. “I’m not gonna let you do this to her.”

Ander is just standing there, leaning against the door next to Polo, looking completely checked out of the conversation. That pisses her off more than anything — it’s not like he isn’t being just as shitty, or like he didn’t lie to her fucking face when she asked him about Polo cheating. She’ll take that up with him later. 

Polo looks guilty, at least. Guilty, and kind of terrified, which... Good. He should be scared of her; she’ll definitely tell Carla the truth if he doesn’t. He finally nods, stammers out a nervous, “Okay,” and that’s probably as much as she can expect from him while he’s on traces of MDMA — at least that’s what she assumes she saw them take earlier. 

“Good, now get the fuck out,” she says, voice bordering on angry. Her night was looking pretty fun until they stumbled in here. When Ander doesn’t react, Polo grabs his hand and pulls him out of the room. The door falls closed, and Rebe instantly jumps up and goes over to lock it properly. 

“Fuck,” she says, pacing back and forth a little. “Those fucking assholes.”

Valerio laughs a little as he nods, and she sighs. “Sorry for ruining your buzz,” she says, even though he’s still got a grin on his face, so his buzz can’t be all that ruined. Typical Valerio. 

“‘S all good,” he reaches a hand towards her, then pulls her back down next to him when she grabs it. “Not your fault our classmates barged in here to accidentally come out as bi-curios.” 

She groans and hits his chest — god, if only that was it. She couldn’t care less about anyone’s sexual orientation, but the cheating? It’s kind of heartbreaking to think about how insecure Carla had seemed when she told her about her suspicions; it’ll absolutely wreck her when she finds out she was right.  
  
If she could, she’d love to go back and unsee what she just saw. 

Valerio pokes her cheek, then makes some lame turn-that-frown-upside-down-esque remark, and she allows herself to let out a grudging laugh. He pulls on her arm until she relents and moves into his lap again, and when she looks up at him there’s a triumphant grin on his face.  
  
“So,” he says, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Any reason in particular you locked that door earlier?”  
  
He’s so transparent, what with the way he’s angling his hips up a little and playing with her earlobe. She should probably find that obnoxious but she thinks it kind of works on him.  
  
“I’m not gonna fuck you in some random dude’s bedroom, Valerio,” she tells him, then leans in to kiss him anyway. She didn’t say anything about kissing. She _wants_ to be kissing him, so she will.  
  
He pulls away in protest. “Christian isn’t _some random dude_ , how dare you talk about my best friend like that!”  


She has no idea why she puts up with his theatrics sometimes. Rolling her eyes, she leans in to kiss him again, if only to shut him up for a while. 

  
**  
  
Of course she misses breakfast on Sunday. She’s pretty sure she hasn’t gone to Sunday breakfast once in the few weeks she’s been on campus. Does anyone get up for breakfast on Sunday?  
  
“Not really,” Marina tells her as they’re walking to the dining hall for lunch. (Brunch.) “They try to lure you in by offering waffles, but if you know the right people working in the kitchen you can always get waffles, so.”  
  
Noted. She aspires to be on waffle sneaking terms with the kitchen staff.  
  
When they walk over to find a seat, Carla, Polo and Ander are at a table near the windows, in the middle of what looks like a tense exchange, and Rebeka hurriedly looks away and directs Marina to a table at the other end of the room.  
  
Marina gives her a confused look and laughs. “Everything okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” she says, then chows down some pasta. “Just haven’t seen them since the party last night.”  
  
“How was that, anyway?”  
  
She can tell Carla is whispering heatedly at Polo, an angry look on her face, so at least they’ve apparently had a long-overdue conversation. She has no idea why Ander is sitting with them, but she’ll let Carla handle her own shit — she seems more than capable.  
  
When she looks back over, Marina is sort of staring at her, so she tries hard to look away from the drama unfolding across the room and focuses her eyes on her food instead. “Sorry, what?”  


“I asked how the party went,” the girl repeats, and Rebeka shrugs. 

“It was okay, I guess.”

Marina snorts at that. “Just okay? I figured any party thrown by Valerio’s drug dealer would be a little better than okay.” 

She really isn’t in the mood for lying. She shrugs noncommittally, then forks some more pasta in her mouth and tries not to be too obvious when she finds herself glancing over at Carla and the boys again. “No, it was fun,” she tells her, which isn’t a total lie — some aspects were definitely more fun than others. “Valerio basically wouldn’t leave my side all night.” 

Marina grins. “Yeah because he _liiiikes_ you,” she mocks, fixing her with a look. “I’ve never seen him trying this hard to impress a girl before.” 

That’s bullshit. That can’t be right. If this is his way of trying to impress her, he’s got terrible game.

“Pretty sure he likes cocaine more than me.” 

“He can like two things at once,” the redhead insists. “Besides, are you really saying you’re not interested?” 

That’s a tough question to answer, so she doesn’t. Is she interested? On a purely physical level, sure. She thinks back to last night and how badly she wanted him. But that was a spur of the moment thing, lust and coke clouding her judgment. She’s not sure she has any actual interest in... dating him, or pursuing anything more serious than the occasional hookup. There’s no shame in admitting that.  
  
She wouldn’t mind someone to take her sexual frustration out on, though. Try as she might, she’s still a horny teen.

Across the room, a chair is pulled out aggressively and the screeching noise of it makes Rebe look over just as Carla jumps up and walks out without giving Polo or Ander a chance to stop her. 

“Uh-oh,” Marina says. “Trouble in paradise.”  
  
She has no interest in talking about any of this, so she changes the subject. “Hey, how come your brother is such a dick?” 

Thankfully Marina takes the bait. She’s so easy to manipulate.  
  
“Pretty sure he was switched at birth,” she jokes, then looks around to make sure no one heard her. “Sorry, I shouldn’t say that, he was adopted… it’s a sore subject.”  
  
Yikes. That’s inappropriate enough to make Rebeka snort out a laugh. “Wow, okay.”  
  
“Now stop trying to change the subject and tell me why there’s a bite mark on your neck.”  
  
**  
  
Subtlety isn’t her forte, even though she sometimes wishes it was. She waits until after dinner, until she’s sure everyone’s retreated to their rooms to deal with the hours of homework due tomorrow, to sneak down the corridor and knock on Carla’s door.  
  
Carla doesn’t tell her to come in, but she can see a light is on inside, so she opens the door anyway.  
  
“Hey,” she says, as a way of announcing herself, then tries to smile when Carla turns around in her desk chair. “You okay?”  
  
“I’d be better if I didn’t have about three hours worth of chem to get through.”  
  
She flinches, asks, “Fuck, did we have homework,” and Carla nods, so she figures it’s fine for her to do what people keep doing to her at this school — get all up in her space. She sits down on Carla’s bed, gives her a prompting look, and waits for her to say something. “Well?”  
  
The blonde turns a page in her chem book, then glances over at Rebe. “Well _what_?”  
  
“Did Polo…” She sighs. God, this is delicate. She really doesn’t want to fuck this up by being blunt. “Are you two okay?”  
  
“Oh, because he’s been fucking another guy for the past few months? Why wouldn’t we be,” she’s nonchalant about it, and if Rebe hadn’t seen her almost cry about this very thing a few nights ago, she might believe her when she shrugs and looks away. “You made him tell me, right?”  
  
It feels shitty to confirm that suspicion, but it’s true, so she nods. “Fucking coward,” Carla scoffs, rolling her eyes. “He never would’ve told me if you hadn’t pushed him into it.”  
  
“So what, are you breaking up?”  
  
Carla chuckles meanly. “Why would I do that?”  
  
Wait, what? No one at this fucking school makes any sense at all. Surely breaking up with your cheating bastard of a boyfriend would be the most logical thing to do in this situation; it’s ridiculous for Carla to insinuate there are any other ways to handle this.  
  
“Why wouldn’t you? He’s a cheater and a liar,” she says, and Carla looks like she’s about one more pointed comment away from either crying or yelling at her. “Staying with him seems like a terrible idea.”  
  
The blonde hums affirmatively, then stares ahead like she’s thinking about something. “Don’t worry, I’ll make him pay for it,” she says after a moment. It makes her laugh, and soon Rebeka is laughing too, even though she has no fucking clue what they’re laughing at.  
  
“Man, this is fucked,” she says, getting up to leave. “The amount of drama going on at this school is insane.”  
  
She’s halfway to the door when she hears Carla call her name as she’s walking after her. “Thanks for… Scaring him into telling me,” she says, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “He seemed fucking terrified of you, so I assume you yelled at him.”  
  
“Trust me, I did,” Rebe says, grinning at Carla who has come to stand right in front of her. “You know I’m good for it.”  
  
Carla nods, then rolls her eyes and goes in to hug Rebeka, and if this wasn’t the completely wrong moment to point it out she’d tell her she literally smells beautiful — like even her sweat glands can’t help but ooze gorgeous pretty girl vibes. She hugs her back, then pulls away and smiles.  
  
“Let me know if you need me to give him another talking to,” she alludes and then turns around and heads for the door again.  
  
“Don’t tell anyone,” Carla whispers, her voice suddenly quiet. God, it’s one thing to let your boyfriend cheat and stay with him, but to keep it a secret altogether? Rebe could never. She rolls her eyes, glad to be facing away from Carla so she can’t see. “Not because I want him to get away with this,” she clarifies. “It’s a small school, I don’t want him to have to deal with rumors about his sexuality.”  
  
That’s nice of her, but Polo probably doesn’t deserve it.  
  
“It’s not up to me to tell anyone,” Rebe confirms, then opens the door. “See you tomorrow.”  
  
Carla waves as she says, “Thanks.”  
  
It’s pretty hard not to turn around and tell the girl she deserves better. That probably wouldn’t be helpful; she should probably go and get started on her own homework.  
  
**  
  
Look, she sort of forgets to keep up with the school rumor mill because homework and essays and tests are actually a nightmare to stay on top of. Las Encinas is a pretentious private school, so of course they operate on a term system, with a week-long half-term break in the fall, and while she can’t wait for that week off in late October, she’s also acutely aware that she’ll have to take about a dozen midterms first to get there.  
  
Caring about academics is fucking exhausting.  
  
It’s been a week since the party incident, and she hasn’t spoken to Ander since. When he tried to sit next to her in French class, she pointedly moved her bag over onto the empty chair until he got the hint and found another seat. She’s still too pissed to confront him.  
  
Now it’s Saturday, and she’s playing a game of aggressive foosball with Valerio in the girls’ common room. He keeps fucking spinning, which she’s told him multiple times is against the rules, but she’s still winning so she doesn’t really care. His hand-eye coordination is terrible.  
  
“So about tonight,” he says as he’s trying hard to tackle the ball away from her. She instantly groans because she knows he’s gonna suggest some sort of party or drinking or drug binge. She has _so_ much homework to get through; she really shouldn’t. When she lets out an annoyed noise, he laughs. “Wow, okay, you seem excited.”  
  
“If you cared about school at all, you’d get it,” she says. She’s not the least bit embarrassed to give a shit about her classes— learning is fun. She may as well take advantage of going to a pretentious private school and get a spot at a fancy university out of all of this. “We literally have binders worth of homework.”  
  
He spins the fucking bar again and she rolls her eyes when he still doesn’t score, even when he’s cheating. “It’ll be low-key, just come have a drink down here.”  
  
“Oh, you know I love low-key nights where your sister glares at me from across the room.”  
  
She’s distracted for just a second when he grins at her in response, mainly because his grin is a little too pretty to look away from, and he uses that second wisely, takes the ball from her and somehow scores a goal. It’s his first of the match, and he breaks into a little victory dance. 

God, he’s ridiculous. She has no idea why she likes him.  
  
(Okay, she has a few ideas.)  
  
**  
  
She lets Valerio talk her into doing tequila shots. It’s a terrible idea, and she’s definitely setting herself up for a massive hangover and a hard time finishing all of her course work tomorrow, but she’s stressed and drinking sounds like a good way to fix that. 

Carla comes over at one point, joins them for a shot or two, and definitely ignores the irritated look Rebe shoots her when she watches her walk back over to her spot in the armchair where Polo and Ander are waiting for her. 

Valerio hands her another shot, then leans in to whisper in her ear. “Is she fucking both of them now? Luckiest bastards in the world.” 

It’s nice of him to try and be subtle about it, even when Carla clearly is not. Rebe catches her eye across the room after she sees her sit down in Polo’s lap, looking up at Ander with a seductive grin on her face. All Carla does is smirk at her and shrug, and if they weren’t in a room full of people she’d probably call her out on this. What the fuck?

Valerio runs a hand up her thigh to distract her, which she appreciates, and she’s buzzed enough to lean into him a little bit. There’s no way she’s gonna stoop to the level of PDA that is drunkenly making out with a guy in front of her entire fucking class, but putting her head on his shoulder is probably fine. At least his sister hasn’t made an appearance yet, so she isn’t being glared at.

When she spots Carla casually playing with one of the buttons on Ander’s shirt, she decides she no longer cares about letting her handle her own shit. This is the stupidest fucking thing she’s ever seen. 

“I’m gonna... give me a minute,” she tells Valerio, who looks excited for the drama to come. She doesn’t plan on making a scene, so he’ll probably be disappointed with the lack of popcorn worthiness of this confrontation. 

There are plenty of ways Carla could choose to cope with this whole situation — simply integrating the guy her boyfriend cheated with into their relationship probably isn’t wise. 

“Can I borrow your for a second, Carla,” she says when she’s close enough to not have to yell. And no, she isn’t asking. The blonde looks annoyed but reluctantly gets up from where she was perched in Polo’s lap, brushing a hand over Ander’s arm as she does. Rebe clutches the bottle of beer in her hand harder than she should and Polo nervously glances at her, so at least he’s still afraid of her. That’s promising. 

She’s really trying to be casual and subtle about this, but what the hell. Looking around to make sure no one is really paying attention, she grabs Carla’s hand and drags her towards the balcony, then pulls her out onto it. 

“Please tell me your solution to all this isn’t a fucking threesome,” she says, trying hard not to shiver. It’s kind of cold outside.

Carla smirks. “What’s wrong with that?” 

“Uh,” she feigns having to think about it. “Literally everything. Come on, you don’t think this will fix anything, right?” 

The girl grabs the drink from Rebe’s hands and chugs some of it, grinning maniacally. “It won’t fix anything, but it might be fun.” 

Wow, okay then. Some lucky bastard of a therapist is going to have a ton of fun unpacking all of this buried trauma for Carla someday. 

“Have you gone insane?” 

Carla smirks again, then nods a little. “Probably.” 

If she didn’t seem so set on her twisted little threesome revenge plot, Rebe would invite her to join her and Valerio for a much more emotionally healthy threesome instead. Just to help her get over Polo, of course — Rebe is selfless like that. It’s definitely not because Carla is kind of the prettiest girl she’s ever seen. 

“This is all gonna blow up in your face,” she tells the blonde, running a hand down her arm for good measure. It’s probably to comfort her, or something. Ugh, her skin is soft to the touch; it’s hard to pry her hand away. 

Carla laughs, pearly white teeth on full display in the moonlight. 

“God forbid I just have fun for once.” 

She saves the I-told-you-so lecture for another day. Carla probably doesn’t need that right now. 

When Carla takes off with Polo and Ander in tow not much later, Valerio shakes his head and giggles next to Rebe. “Imagine cheating on a girl like Carla and being rewarded with a fucking threesome.” 

Yeah. She kind of can’t stop imagining it. Running a hand over Valerio’s arm, she hums her agreement. 

“She’s fucking deranged,” she mumbles, toying with the watch on Val’s wrist. “But hot, too.” 

That’s just a fact; she’s pretty sure everyone at this school is attracted to Carla on some level, so she doesn’t feel the least bit jealous when Valerio nods in response. 

For some reason, all this talk of threesomes is making her feel a little… on edge. If only there was someone around to help with that... “Val,” she murmurs, and it comes out breathy and needy. He glances over at her, his eyes dark, and yeah, they’re definitely on the same page here. “Let’s go.” 

She doesn’t hold his hand when they’re walking out of the room; that would be too obvious. Instead, she walks ahead, barely spares him a glance, and heads for her room. So much for not having boys in here. Considering the threesome currently going on a few doors down, this is probably fine. 

They don’t talk once the door is closed behind them. Valerio just pushes her against it, runs his hands down her side and instantly slips them under the waist of her sweatpants.

He’s being a fucking tease, just sort of brushing his hand over her hip bones as he bites at her neck and she lets out an impatient moan. “God, can you just—“ there’s an insistent knock on the door then, which she feels more than hears considering how she’s currently pressed against it. 

It’s like the universe really, really doesn’t want her to have sex with Valerio, what with the way they keep being interrupted. 

Rebe freezes; is someone from the faculty about to catch her with a boy in her room? She didn’t think anybody upheld the fake code of conduct around here. Val still hasn’t stopped touching her, and she pushes him away roughly before she turns around to open the door. 

“I do not want to know why it took you so long to let me in,” Lu says as a way of greeting, then walks over to lean back against Rebeka’s desk. 

Valerio sighs and runs a hand through his curls. “Lu can you mind your own fucking business for once?” 

No, she obviously can’t, if the way she barged in here is any indication. 

“This isn’t about you, Val,” she warns, addressing her brother, then looks over at Rebeka, concern written all over her face. It’s actually a little alarming to see Lu like this. “What the fuck is going on with Carla?” 

Rebeka scoffs, then walks over to sit down on her bed. “Why are you asking me?” 

“Because she won’t talk to me!” Lu sounds worried, maybe a little frustrated too, and it gives Rebe pause. It’s weird to think of Lu as someone who cares about people other than herself. “She won’t tell me what happened and she’s clearly miserable and I need you to tell me _now_!”  
  
It really isn’t her place to tell Lu anything, so she tries to be vague. “I mean, weren’t you around earlier to witness her little display?”  
  
“I was in the city with Guzmán tonight,” Lu says and Valerio groans at the mention of Guzmán. “What are you talking about?”  
  
Val giggles and sits down next to Rebe as he says, “Carla has decided to experiment with threesomes.”  
  
Ugh, he shouldn’t have said that. He shouldn’t have said anything at all, so Rebe elbows him and rolls her eyes. Lu is just sort of staring at them, like she’s trying to figure out her next move.  
  
“He’s full of shit, don’t listen to him.”  
  
Lu obviously decides to pester Valerio because he seems easier to crack. “Val,” she draws out, a menacing smile on her lips. The girl is fucking scary when she wants to be. “Tell me what you know.”  
  
Thankfully he doesn’t take the bait.  
  
“Don’t you think if she’s not telling you, there’s a reason for that?”  
  
Ouch, harsh. Rebe is just sitting back and watching their little sibling exchange, transfixed. It kind of reminds her of watching the Williams sisters go head to head in a game of tennis. She has a feeling Valerio is not the Serena of this duo; Lu is definitely gonna get him to talk and win this.  
  
Lu looks pissed all of a sudden, and Rebe sighs. This is gonna go on forever if they don’t just tell Lu what she wants to hear.  
  
“Sorry Lu, I think it’s up to Carla to fill you in,” she tells her, trying hard to ignore the way Valerio has started to run his fingers through her hair. It’s a little distracting.  
  
“Polo cheated,” Lu says calmly, just watching their faces for a reaction. “Right?”  
  
She thinks she keeps her expression fairly neutral, but Val is kind of nervously laughing next to her, which is a dead giveaway. Lu rolls her eyes — at Polo cheating, maybe, or at the fact that her brother is a fucking moron, Rebe can’t be sure.  
  
“Who the fuck would cheat on _her_ ,” Lu says, shaking her head. Rebe shrugs because she still doesn’t get that part either.  
  
Valerio is a dick, so he says, “Pretty sure her looks weren’t the issue,” then pulls a face. Rebe slaps his shoulder and hopes he gets that he really should shut up now. “It’s not like Ander isn’t just as hot.”  
  
She gasps out his name. Fucking idiot. He definitely should know better than to tell his sister, the queen of mean, sensitive info like this. If Carla wanted Lu to know, she would’ve told her.  
  
Lu looks genuinely shocked at the revelation, her mouth falling open a little bit, and Rebe really fucking hopes she’ll have the decency to keep this to herself. She and Carla are close, right? Maybe she won’t use this against her.  
  
Finally, Lu gets up and smiles at Val as she heads for the door. “Thanks.”  
  
When the door falls closed behind Lu, Rebe groans and grabs Val by the chin as she climbs into his lap. He’s giggling, because he’s fucking weird, and she rolls her eyes at him.  
  
“You shouldn’t have told her that,” she says, and he grins as he reaches for her hip. “What if she tells people?”  
  
“She wouldn’t do that to Carla,” he says, which, really? She has her doubts about that. Lu seems like she’s not above using shit like this against her friends. “You don’t know her like I do.”  
  
She doesn’t, but she really hopes he’s right. She feels a headache coming on and sighs, wondering how shitty it would be if she sent him away now. Her head sort of falls forward to rest on his shoulder and she lets her breathing slow down a little as she revels in the smell of him.  
  
Valerio hugs her closer. “Tired?”  
  
“Maybe,” she says, then moves so that she’s on her side next to him, smiling a little when he lies down behind her and wraps an arm around her hip. “Wanna sleep here?”  
  
She can feel him nodding behind her, and he feels so good wrapped around her like this that she doesn’t even bother worrying about whether they might get in trouble.  
  
It’s probably fine. 

**  
  
Overt the next few weeks, she keeps spotting Carla hanging around campus with Polo and Ander, watches them talk and laugh and flirt during lunch, or on the sidelines at swim practice, and it’s kind of ridiculous to think they’re actually pulling this off and haven’t killed each other yet.  
  
Polyamory never works out in movies, so she’s just waiting for the big blowout.  
  
“It’s actually kinda nice,” Carla tells her as they’re sipping from large cups of coffee in the library one night, going through their history notes. “I like all the attention.”  
  
Of course she does. It must be nice to be on the receiving end of all that extra affection. Who wouldn’t like that? Rebeka certainly doesn’t mind the way Valerio keeps checking on her throughout the week, how he brings her coffee and snacks, and sometimes even food when she skips dinner in favor of studying in her room, so she kind of gets the attention thing.  
  
(No, she still hasn’t slept with him, but she will. They both know it’s gonna happen, timing just hasn’t really worked out for them.)  
  
Midterms are moving closer and closer, and she’s mostly gotten her shit together by studying her ass off. The only class she’s worried about is French. It would be kind of nice if she could make up with Ander and study with him, so she pulls him aside after class one Thursday, sort of gives him a prompting look, and doesn’t have to wait long for him to get the hint.  


“Look, I didn’t mean to be a dick,” Ander tells her, eyebrows drawn together like he’s… trying to emote, or something. He doesn’t usually show his feelings much. 

“You lied to my face,” is all she says, and he nods and sighs like he feels guilty about that. At least he’s not denying it. It’s been weeks, and she’s not really mad enough at this point to still be holding a grudge. 

She obviously knows the situation is a lot more complex than any other generic cheating plot would be. Las Encinas is small and largely conservative and even if people their age might be accepting of any non-straight hookups in theory, there would be talk and teasing and gossip. She gets that. That doesn’t mean he had to keep it from her, though. 

“What was I supposed to tell you? _‘Yes he’s cheating with me’_? Come on, Rebe,” he says, and she bursts out laughing at the thought of that.  
  
“Would’ve been pretty funny, at least,” she grins, and he punches her shoulder and drags her towards their next class. “So how’s your little threesome going?”  
  
Ander grins at her. “Great,” he says, then raises his brow. “How’s Valerio?”  
  
Fuck him for bringing that up. She kind of forgot how the night she found out about him and Polo was also the night he saw her making out with Val.  
  
“Great,” she mimics, then walks into the chem lab. “Let’s blow some shit up,” she yells loudly, sitting down in the front row and pointing to the seat next to her.  
  
Their chemistry teacher is standing right in front of them, shrugging on her lab coat as she stares at her in horror. “Rebeka, please refrain from _‘blowing shit up’_ in my class, okay?”  
  
 _Fine_. She’ll try her best not to.  
  
Six weeks into her time at Las Encinas, she’s pretty sure she’ll be okay here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longer than planned wait for this chapter! I don't really have an excuse for taking several weeks to update this... I've been pretty sick, but my covid test was negative (yay!) so I can't even blame on the C-word.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my laptop is currently being fixed so this was edited on my phone — apologies for the inevitable formatting issues.

She wakes up to a loud knocking sound and blinks open an eye as she grunts. Right. Apparently she fell asleep in the library again.

“It’s ten,” Carla says, closing her book with a thud. “Let’s go.”  
  
Their last midterm is tomorrow, and Rebe’s pretty sure she’s never been this excited for anything to be over before. Just one more exam and two more days of school and then she’ll get a whole week off. None of her friends are going off campus for break, and she’s not sure yet — it might be weird to go back to her old neighborhood after spending the past ten weeks partying with Spanish nobility. Maybe she’ll just stick around and hang out on campus with everyone else. 

She’s taken to leaving her phone in her room for her study sessions, and she’s a little surprised to see a text from Nano when she checks it. It’s definitely too early for his stupid _u up?_ pickup line to work. They don’t really talk a lot, especially now that she knows he’s involved in shady dealings with her mother.  
  
She’s definitely gonna ignore him.  
  
She steps out of her uncomfortable jeans to slip into a pair of PJs but before she’s even pulled them up her legs, her phone rings. Samu’s contact picture pops up — a very unflattering shot of him drunkenly passed out in her lap — and she rolls her eyes before answering. Did he really have to _video_ call her? When did phone calls go out of fashion? And really, is it national annoy Rebeka if your last name is Garcia day?  
  
“Sup?” She holds her phone up for a better angle and sits down on her bed, crossing her legs. When his video loads, she groans — of course it’s Nano.  
  
“Hello to you too, Rebeka,” he touts, and there’s a lazy quality to his smirk, so she’s sure he’s at least a little stoned. What else is new? He’s shirtless, which is kind of unnecessary, but she knows him well enough to know he doesn’t tend to wear a shirt at home — he’s not doing this to show off for her. He looks… good. Tired, maybe, but good.  
  
She’s really not in the mood for his shit. Some sarcasm is in order. “Why do you have Samu’s phone, did he get stabbed running a drug errand for you?”  
  
“Hostile. Okay,” he grins into the camera. “Got better people to talk to, Rebe?”

It’s her turn to grin. He’s fucking jealous. Hilarious, really, to think Nano might feel threatened by someone as innocuous as Valerio. (Yeah, maybe she posted a very friendly picture of them cuddling to her Instagram just to piss him off. Is that petty? Definitely, but it’s also hilarious. He’s so easily played.)  
  
“I have to go to bed actually,” she says, which is her way of brushing him off. Whatever, he’s a fucking adult, he can definitely handle it. “Say whatever perverted thing you called me to say and we’ll call it a day, okay, _Nanito_?”

“Samu says you’ve got next week off. Gonna grace us with your presence, brat?”  
  
“Not if you’re gonna call me that, I’m not,” she laughs. “How’s the drug pushing going, Escobar?”  
  
His left eyebrow, the one with the scar from his first fist fight, twitches so she knows she hit a nerve with that question. He shrugs, then mumbles, “Fine,” which is so obviously a lie, she doesn’t even feel the need to point it out. She gives him a look, just raises her eyebrows in doubt and grins when he rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” 

Well, it’s apparent they’re not gonna talk about that. He better get to the point, then.  
  
“Why are you half naked,” he asks when she moves her phone and her bare legs flash on screen briefly as she slips under the covers. He’s smirking again, and oh, this is the Nano she knows and… tolerates. Sometimes.  
  
“I could ask you the same thing,” she replies, then bites her lip slightly as she contemplates whether this is a good idea. She’s stressed, and she’d probably get herself off after they hang up anyway so… “Make it quick, I need to sleep soon.” 

Nano grins at her, all of his teeth on display, then tells her exactly what he’d do to her if he was there right now and yeah, okay, that’ll do. 

If nothing else, it’s pretty good as far as stress relief goes. 

(She ignores when he tells her _‘that curly haired rich dude’_ will never fuck her like he can. It’d probably be weird to fight him on that.)  
  
**

“Here’s to surviving another round of midterms,” Lu is currently commanding an audience of about twenty boys and girls in the common room, holding up a red solo cup undoubtedly filled with a very strong gin and tonic. “Let’s get fucking _wasted_!” 

Well, that’s not what she expected Lu to say, but Lu is grinning and really, it’s what everyone is thinking anyway so Rebe whistles and lets out a scream. Everyone else is jumping up and down and hugging, almost like normal people at a normal party — so maybe this will finally be a real party where people don’t act like they have better places to be. 

Next to her, Val is tapping his foot excitedly, a careless grin on his lips. For someone who didn’t spend even a second studying for midterms, he sure looks excited about celebrating the end of exams. 

Carla is sitting on the other side of him, watching Ander and Polo carefully as they talk near the table of refreshments and Rebe honestly wants to strangle her. This whole threesome business has been going on for a little too long — there’s no way it’ll end well. 

“Any plans for break,” Valerio asks both of them, and Carla just shrugs, so Rebe figures it’s her turn to talk. 

“My useless best friend is trying to convince me to go back to Madrid, but I feel like there’s no point in going,” she tells him, leaning closer when he grabs her wrist, which reminds her… That’s kind of her plan for next week — finally finding the time to sleep with him. She’s got her priorities straight. (And a point to prove to Nano, or to herself, maybe.) 

Carla takes a comically large sip of her drink, then fixes them both with a fake smile. “Polo’s gonna be off campus so you guys better keep me entertained.” 

“What,” Val deadpans. “Isn’t that Ander’s job?” 

Rebe snorts out a laugh, but that’s also kind of a shitty thing to point out so she elbows him lightly when Carla isn’t looking. 

“Never mind,” the blonde says, then gets up to grin at Valerio as she looks back at him, gesturing to where he’s touching Rebe. “I’ll go… you two enjoy whatever _this_ is.” 

Predictably, she walks over and pushes in between Polo and Ander as they talk, and the boys both look a little too caught off guard to be happy about this development. It’s only a matter of time before this whole thing goes to shit — Rebe kind of selfishly hopes she won’t be around to deal with the fallout. 

Valerio is watching them too, a sly grin on his face. He turns to Rebeka, pulls on her wrist until she half moves into his lap, then grabs her chin to get her to look at him. 

A few weeks ago she would’ve been annoyed at having him act like this in public, but she kind of really doesn’t care anymore. Some people around the room are definitely watching, and Marina has already caught her eye and winked at her twice but… whatever. Let them be jealous. 

“So you’re staying,” he states, never once breaking eye contact. 

She laughs. “I’ll probably be around.”

His hand trails from her knee to her hip, and she can already barely remember what they’re talking about, she’s so distracted. One drink into the night, she can’t even blame this on the alcohol; she’s completely sober. 

“Good.”

That makes her chuckle. “Good?” He just nods, and she wishes they weren’t in a room full of people so she could kiss him. “Any idea how we can pass the time?”

The look on his face is one of sheer joy. He grins for just a second, then his lips tick up into a smirk and she doesn’t need him to say anything. They both know where this is going. 

But not yet. 

Getting up, she reaches for him and pulls him to his feet, then leads him to the corner of the room where Lu and Guzmán are pouring tequila shots for everyone. 

A little liquid courage, or whatever. 

**

A lot of liquid courage, as it turns out. 

Several rounds of shots later, she’s definitely wasted. Lu isn’t faring much better herself, drunkenly clinging to her like they don’t constantly fight when they’re sober. Val is engaged in a serious discussion with Guzmán, and they must be drunk as well — that’s the only way they’d ever tolerate one another. 

Lu catches her staring at the boys and groans. “I don’t know what the fuck you see in him,” she murmurs, putting her head on Rebe’s shoulder. “Most annoying person I know.” 

That’s pretty funny, coming from someone who’s dating Guzmán, so she rolls her eyes and pats Lu on the shoulder. “He’s your brother, you have to say that.” 

“Whatever, he’s a fucking idiot, you could do so much better,” the brunette says, slurring her words a little.

If Rebe wasn’t sufficiently drunk, she’d fight the urge to hit on her a little harder. 

“What, are you offering?” 

Lu pulls back, smirks at her briefly and honestly looks like she’s considering it. She’s a lot more like her brother than she’d like to admit, if that smirk is anything to go by — it clearly means nothing but trouble. Finally, she rolls her eyes and laughs. “Val,” she yells, even though he’s basically right next to her. When he looks over at her, she grins at him. “Your weird little girlfriend is hitting on me, make her stop.” 

Valerio takes a step towards them and puts an arm around Rebe, then laughs as he addresses his sister. “Be my guest,” he says. Yeah, uh, thanks but no thanks. She’d rather not. “Sharing is caring.” 

Jesus, everyone at this school is fucking weird. But she’s drunk, and high on the adrenaline of having passed all of her exams so… She playfully punches his arm and laughs. The drunk part of her brain that just wants to hug people sort of loves all of these bizarre characters she’s forced to hang out with 24/7. 

There’s commotion across the room and she looks over in time to see Marina taking off her top as people whistle, a couple of seniors crowding around her and — is that Nadia? At a party? She doesn’t seem like the type. Maybe Rebeka is drunk enough to be hallucinating. 

Carla and her boys — Ander would probably punch her if he heard her referring to them as that — took off a while ago, and it seems anyone who isn’t game to get completely shitfaced has already turned in for the night. 

She’s too drunk to think straight, and sort of worried she might just fall over if she were to attempt to walk or dance, so she nudges Valerio towards the big armchair in the corner of the room and shrugs apologetically when Lu calls her a buzzkill. He sits down and pulls her into his lap, then giggles against her neck when she falls back against him like a limp sack of potatoes. Grace is not her strong suit. 

When she checks her phone, she’s got a missed call from Samu, and for some reason drunk!Rebeka thinks it’s a great idea to call him back — on FaceTime no less — and say hi. 

It’s after midnight, but Samu barely ever stays out late anyway. There’s no way she’ll be interrupting anything. Valerio’s got an arm around her waist, his chin propped up on her shoulder as he nods and listens attentively while she briefs him on who he’s about to speak to. 

“Just be cool,” she tells him, then giggles when he tickles her side a little. “Don’t do that.” 

Samu answers the phone with a grin on his face, clearly sitting around their rundown living room table as he drinks from a bottle of beer. She’s holding the phone up to only show her face, and he apparently has no idea she’s got company. 

“I was beginning to think you had better things to do on a Friday,” he laughs, and she just sort of drunkenly grins at her phone screen. “Wow, are you wasted?” 

She nods, then laughs when Val tickles her again. Moving her arm a tiny bit, she tilts her phone to get Valerio in the frame, too. 

“This is Val,” she says over the music and all the screaming around them. Val just sort of sheepishly smiles into the camera, then raises his hand in a wave. 

“Ah, so this is the mystery man from the pictures,” he grins at them on camera. She feels Valerio’s grip on her hip tighten, so he must like how Samu is clearly intrigued. “Are you coming home next week?” 

Oh right, she kind of forgot to tell him that’s no longer happening. She shakes her head apologetically, because she’s currently too drunk to use words to explain why. Samu looks a little bummed, which is apparently reason enough for Valerio to finally open his mouth to speak. 

“You should just come up for a visit,” he yells enthusiastically. That’s a horrible idea, but it’s too late now. “Bring your brother, too!” 

Dear god, no. Valerio did not just say that. Samu laughs, then flips the camera to show Nano sitting across from him, an amused smirk on his lips. He switches back to the front camera, then says, “I would, but I have school.” 

She hears Nano scoff, and yeah, that’s kind of bullshit — he could definitely just skip a few days. He seems to consider this for a moment. “I have school, and Nano has—,” drugs to sell, “to work. Where would we stay, anyway?” 

“I’ve got a friend in town who you can stay with,” Valerio runs a hand over her arm and grins. Is anyone gonna ask her if she’s okay with any of this? Fucking rude. “Think about it!” 

As if this could possibly get any weirder, Nano pops up behind Samu on screen and winks at the camera. “Oh, we’ll think about it, thanks, _rich boy_.” 

She’s instantly reminded of Nano’s claim from two nights ago, can’t help but flash back to how he’d promised her he’d _‘fuck her so good, no one will ever compare’_ the next time he sees her and… _god_. If they actually drive up for a visit, she’s in so much trouble. 

They say their goodbyes before hanging up, and Valerio bites down on her earlobe. “Are you sure they’re brothers? They look nothing alike.” 

“Whatever,” she dismisses, then tugs on his wrist to get him to stop biting a path down her neck. They’re still in public, after all. “No way they’re actually gonna show.” 

The fact that most of the faculty has left for the week definitely helps convince her to go back to his room when he propositions her. And okay, sure, the tequila probably doesn’t hurt either. Her brain is a little too fogged up to be in the mood for anything more serious than kissing, but that’s still pretty fun. 

The room is spinning just slightly when she closes her eyes. Valerio tightens his arm around her waist, whispers, “Night,” and she somehow goes to sleep anyway. 

All in all, she considers not spending half of the night puking a win in her book. 

** 

It takes her several minutes of racking her brain for memories of how last night ended to understand why she’s only wearing underwear and pressed against a mostly naked wall of muscle — Valerio — when she wakes up the next morning. 

Yeah, those final two shots of tequila were probably excessive. For some reason she never figured out, all the dorm rooms have a little sink in the corner, so she drags herself over there to splash some water on her face, then steals Valerio’s toothbrush to get rid of the weird tequila aftertaste in her mouth. Using someone else’s toothbrush is kind of a weird invasion of his privacy, but she’s sure he’ll appreciate it when he wakes up and doesn’t have to taste her morning breath, so whatever. 

When she slides back into bed mere minutes later, Val blinks open an eye and pulls her close again. “‘S too early to be up,” he mutters. She has no clue what time it actually is, but a little nap definitely can’t hurt. It’s not like they have places to be. 

She wakes up again when she feels the bed shift as he gets up not much later, kind of groans when she stretches her arms above her head and he looks back at her with a fond look on his face. 

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom, you better not move,” he says, then walks out the door wearing nothing but briefs. Ugh, she wishes the bathroom dress code on her floor was this lax — robes are overrated. 

Now is probably a good time to check her phone. It’s almost twelve, so they’ll have to decide whether they want to go down to the dining hall for lunch soon. 

She wouldn’t consider herself the most friendly person, okay? Perhaps that’s why it’s still weird to her that several people at this school like her enough to text her when she skips out on meals. Ander, Marina and Carla all texted her about an hour ago asking if she’s okay, or if she wants food, or whether she was just ‘too busy with Valerio — winky face emoji’ (fuck you, Marina). Further back in her notifications, there’s a text from Nano sent around three in the morning that just says ‘ _Don’t bother_ ’ and she literally wants to fucking strangle him. 

Maybe she’ll just block his number. 

Val chooses that moment to walk back into the room, hands her a bottle of Sprite and she sits up and crosses her legs. The covers slip off her lap and Valerio doesn’t say anything, so he clearly doesn’t mind how incredibly indecent this pose is. She unscrews the bottle cap, then takes a sip and can’t help but smile fondly at the fact that he remembered how she told him she likes to drink super sugary sweet soda the morning after a party to help kick her body into gear. 

He drops back onto the bed next to her, puts his head in her lap, and she resists the urge to tell him to put his mouth to better use if he’s gonna be this close to her… center. God, sometimes she still cringes when she can’t bring herself to even think filthy words — it’s not that she’s sexually repressed, she just feels weird using them. 

He lifts his head slightly to grin at her, then steals the bottle from her hands and leans up to take a sip. She runs a hand down his chest and over his abs just because she can’t not touch him when he looks like that; it’s kind of unfair. 

“Rebe,” he says, and there’s something in his voice that she doesn’t quite recognize. “How’s your head?” 

She plays with a random curl that’s sticking up from his head and laughs. “Fine, get some food into me later and I’ll be as good as new,” she tells him, then shivers when he puts the Sprite bottle down on the floor and crowds her against the mattress. His face is mere inches from hers and she’s having trouble focusing but she still asks, “Why?” 

He doesn’t reply, just leans in to kiss her while simultaneously sliding the straps of her bra off her shoulders and yeah, okay, they’re probably not gonna make it to lunch, but that’s fine. 

No meal could ever live up to this anyway. 

**

“You couldn’t have at least texted to let me know you’re not fucking dead in a ditch somewhere?” 

Marina always acts like Rebeka owes her information — like she’s owed an explanation when she doesn’t have time for her, or should offer up information she’d rather keep private. They get along, but sometimes she’s a little too stubborn and entitled for Rebe’s liking. 

She’s sitting on the floor in Marina’s room, her back against the wall as she nibbles on a slice of the pizza she and Valerio had delivered to campus — another perk of campus being empty is there are no teachers to tell them off for ordering food. 

“I was a little busy,” she grins at the redhead, then takes another bite of her food. God, it feels good to finally eat something. Marina gives her an inquisitive look so she rolls her eyes. “Nope. I am not telling you anything.” 

“Oh, come on! Don’t just keep this to yourself, the entire female student body wants to know what he’s like in bed, they’re just all too afraid of his crazy to find out for themselves.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Rebe laughs. 

Marina shrugs, playing with the bracelet on her wrist.

“I’m sure even Lu is curious…” 

Fucking ew. “Jesus, please don’t,” she mimes throwing up. “That’s not funny.” 

“Just tell me!” 

“Whose bed did _you_ sleep in last night,” she asks instead, and when Marina blushes and looks away, she finds herself grinning at her. That was a total shot in the dark and she kind of can’t believe it worked. “Who?!” 

“One of the townies. You probably don’t know him.” 

That’s a vague answer she won’t let her get away with, so she gets up and sits down next to Marina on her bed, then makes sure to taunt her until she pulls up some pictures on her phone. The guy is hot, and at least a few years older than them, so he’s probably an alumnus. Good for her, honestly. 

Carla calls her as they’re halfway through his Instagram page, and Rebe just says, “We’re in Marina’s room,” as a way of greeting, then hangs up and laughs when the blonde walks in a few minutes later with a bottle of wine. 

“My mom sent me a case of the new harvest,” she says, grinning triumphantly, and right, Rebe forgot about the whole vineyard heiress thing. 

They get slightly tipsy on a Saturday afternoon, drink wine straight from the bottle as they pass it back and forth, and yeah, this is fun. 

“So how’s Valerio,” Carla asks after a few sips of wine. 

Rebeka groans, holding onto both Marina and Carla’s shoulder with one hand each. “That’s none of your business.” 

“Everything is my business, this is boarding school,” the blonde replies. Next to her, Marina laughs in agreement. “Tell me or I’ll have to make up my own version of events,” she turns to look at her, trails a hand down her neck where she knows she’s got a whole laundry list of bite marks and…. Ugh. 

Biting her lip, she sighs, then launches into the story anyway. She’s never been friends with girls, but these two are a little too nosy. 

(Telling them still feels kind of… exhilarating.)

**

There’s a knock on Marina’s door, and she knows it’s Valerio before the door even swings open and he pops his head inside. 

(Her fault for telling him where she’s hanging out when he texted.) 

“I brought reinforcements,” he says, pointing to Ander next to him. There’s something dangling from a red piece of string in his hand. “And the key to the pool.” 

See, this is what movies and TV shows promised her private school would be like — filled with illegal parties on school grounds, preferably at the school pool so everyone can be a little more naked. 

Carla makes a beeline for the door, mumbling something about grabbing her bathing suit, and Marina grabs her phone and excitedly says, “Let me tell Guzmán.”

Valerio groans, and Rebe would normally agree that having Marina’s asshole of a brother around isn’t preferable, but five people is hardly enough for a pool party so it’s probably wise to get Lu and Guzmán in on this. 

She walks over to Valerio, grabs the key from his hands and tries to hide her face against his shoulder when he trails a hand down her arm because she doesn’t want the people around them to see her blush. He’s not playing fair. 

“How’d you get this,” she asks, pointing at the key. 

Val smirks. “Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell.”

Next to him, Ander laughs, puts an arm around Valerio’s neck and shakes his head. “He’s full of shit. I got it from my mom.” 

That gets a chuckle out of everyone in the room, and Valerio sighs dramatically before he throws his hands up in defeat. 

“Last one in the pool has to strip naked,” he exclaims, then practically runs out the door, and Rebe figures she better run after him, rather than stop by her room to grab a bikini. That seems risky. The sports bra and plain underwear she’s wearing is probably fine for a swim. 

In the end, Val literally waits for everyone to get in the pool, then laughs as he strips off his clothes and dives in completely naked. He’s such a show off. Everyone cheers, except for Lu who groans and hides her face against Guzmán’s neck. She’d probably do the same if this was Samu — the closest thing she’s got to a brother. 

They stay in the pool until their skin has gone all pruny, then slip into Las Encinas branded robes and move to the sauna. 

She’s half asleep in Valerio’s arms later that night when he giggles against her neck, the sound of it loud enough to interrupt her pre-sleep routine of mentally checking out. 

“What,” she groans when he runs a hand over her bare stomach. 

She feels his lips gently press against the back of her shoulder, then the slight shake of his head. “Nothing,” he whispers. “Go to sleep.” 

**

Samu tells her they might drive up to come see her on Thursday if she’s okay with it, and well, it’s not like she can say no, right? That would be even more awkward than just letting them visit. 

“Tell Christian he’s gonna have to play host,” she tells Val, who’s sitting across from her. They’re in town scarfing down giant slices of chocolate cake, mainly because a gloomy October Sunday definitely calls for sitting in a rundown coffee shop all day. 

“I’ll text him,” Val nods. 

Rebe smiles at him. “Won’t his parents mind?”

He chuckles, and she feels like she’s missing the joke. 

“He’s twenty years old, Rebe, he doesn’t live with his parents.” 

Oh. Okay. Maybe she should stop judging people by their… height and entirely too youthful demeanor. Her mistake. 

Val kicks her in the shin lightly. “How old did you think he was?” 

“I don’t know, like, sixteen?” 

He laughs. “What sort of sixteen-year-olds do you know who run drug operations big enough to supply an entire town?” 

Well. She probably shouldn’t answer that question. 

  
  


  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you want drama? I’ll give you drama!

**Author's Note:**

> find me [on tumblr](http://cupcakeb.tumblr.com/)


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